But that certainly doesn't fix this card, just let's it be....less terrible.
DarthParallax
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
ooohh!!!! what an intriguing ability! of course the execution sucks, but this card makes me want to think of ways to turn it into something good:
obviously the first step is to bump it up to rare- because we're going to be making a somewhat strange card in a lot of ways, and the place for strange cards that have worth-playing potential but might flop unless you get your deck right seems to be 'rare' right now, uncommons having taken 'reliable small effects' place and mythics taking 'this is a good card. it wins the game' place. So a really proper-done sacc-ing Serpent is going to be a rare because it will need to be powerful but not too consistent and definitely not small.
The second thing you do, after you say 'let's make it a RARE serpent', is you start looking at the Power, Toughness, and CMC numbers with new eyes. Rares have quite a different budge than commons for this area, even in blue. I think a modern Rare serpent could argue that 2UU should get him a size of 5/6 of 6/5. Pretty beefy, in other words, and really really beefy for 4 mana in blue.
That's is the main thing 'Islandhome' has always been missing in the first place: it's used as a drawback for flavor reasons, and then none of it's creatures are above the mana-power curve. that's wrong. drawback creatures should make up for it somewhere else, and high power numbers is the place to do it.
Lastly, that 'until end of turn' text is horridly awful. Even if my creature was a 5/5 for 1UU and nothing else, I wouldn't sac a land just to let him attack. Probably. But I like the idea of saccing a land to do something-
How about:
New and Improved Serpent 2UU
Rare
Islandhome
Sac a land: Put a flood counter on each land. Those lands are Islands as long as you control New and Improved Serpent. When New and Improved Serpent leaves the battlefield, remove all flood counters from lands.
6/5
There. I don't know if this is all that exciting a card, but by Serpent Standards, it's great: you sac a land to color-hose your opponent while at the same time letting your Serpent attack until it's dead or until your opponent finds some way to fix the flood. It's a 6/5 for 4 mana which is a lot but rares are allowed to do that. It's an early drop card though for Blue, so your opponent will probably play more lands of the colors they need. It's not going to horribly ruin your day- it will just ask you to come up with an answer quickly, but that answer should be easy to find.
Maybe a different card can be made in White called 'Purify Land' or something, that removes all counters from lands? In a Core Set with Obsidian Fireheart and something black that does something or other? :)
I've always wanted there to be a Serpent that was really really cool and worth playing, because the mechanics of Serpents are fundamentally interesting from a strategy perspective- if Wizards would just be willing to push the P/T numbers more on them so that they'd be worth the risks, Serpents would have a lot of respect I think...
Earthdawn
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The second ability should have been to put the land used to pay for the ability under defending player's control until end of turn and untap the land. Add a third ability of Islandwalk.
Of course, this card was meant to enable Threshold... so its mechanics are just fine the way they are. It would be interesting to see them revisit this creature in a new set by slightly adjusting the mechanics for present day MTG. Call it Dreamweaver ;)
NARFNra
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This looks like it would be a fairly useful enabler in any casual Serpent deck.
Serpents as a rule tend to suck: This would at least allow you to attack with all of your is land requiring serpents. The cost is fairly low by serpent standards; in fact, an interesting unexpected ploy would be to drop Dreamwinder late game and immediately activate the ability.
Of course, there's always Phantasmal Terrain/Convincing Mirage. Which is basically about 80x as good. But this guy would get tribal bonuses and stuff, so shrug.
Comments (7)
But that certainly doesn't fix this card, just let's it be....less terrible.
obviously the first step is to bump it up to rare- because we're going to be making a somewhat strange card in a lot of ways, and the place for strange cards that have worth-playing potential but might flop unless you get your deck right seems to be 'rare' right now, uncommons having taken 'reliable small effects' place and mythics taking 'this is a good card. it wins the game' place. So a really proper-done sacc-ing Serpent is going to be a rare because it will need to be powerful but not too consistent and definitely not small.
The second thing you do, after you say 'let's make it a RARE serpent', is you start looking at the Power, Toughness, and CMC numbers with new eyes. Rares have quite a different budge than commons for this area, even in blue. I think a modern Rare serpent could argue that 2UU should get him a size of 5/6 of 6/5. Pretty beefy, in other words, and really really beefy for 4 mana in blue.
That's is the main thing 'Islandhome' has always been missing in the first place: it's used as a drawback for flavor reasons, and then none of it's creatures are above the mana-power curve. that's wrong. drawback creatures should make up for it somewhere else, and high power numbers is the place to do it.
Lastly, that 'until end of turn' text is horridly awful. Even if my creature was a 5/5 for 1UU and nothing else, I wouldn't sac a land just to let him attack. Probably. But I like the idea of saccing a land to do something-
How about:
New and Improved Serpent 2UU
Rare
Islandhome
Sac a land: Put a flood counter on each land. Those lands are Islands as long as you control New and Improved Serpent. When New and Improved Serpent leaves the battlefield, remove all flood counters from lands.
6/5
There. I don't know if this is all that exciting a card, but by Serpent Standards, it's great: you sac a land to color-hose your opponent while at the same time letting your Serpent attack until it's dead or until your opponent finds some way to fix the flood. It's a 6/5 for 4 mana which is a lot but rares are allowed to do that. It's an early drop card though for Blue, so your opponent will probably play more lands of the colors they need. It's not going to horribly ruin your day- it will just ask you to come up with an answer quickly, but that answer should be easy to find.
Maybe a different card can be made in White called 'Purify Land' or something, that removes all counters from lands? In a Core Set with Obsidian Fireheart and something black that does something or other? :)
I've always wanted there to be a Serpent that was really really cool and worth playing, because the mechanics of Serpents are fundamentally interesting from a strategy perspective- if Wizards would just be willing to push the P/T numbers more on them so that they'd be worth the risks, Serpents would have a lot of respect I think...
Of course, this card was meant to enable Threshold... so its mechanics are just fine the way they are. It would be interesting to see them revisit this creature in a new set by slightly adjusting the mechanics for present day MTG. Call it Dreamweaver ;)
Serpents as a rule tend to suck: This would at least allow you to attack with all of your is land requiring serpents. The cost is fairly low by serpent standards; in fact, an interesting unexpected ploy would be to drop Dreamwinder late game and immediately activate the ability.
Of course, there's always Phantasmal Terrain/Convincing Mirage. Which is basically about 80x as good. But this guy would get tribal bonuses and stuff, so shrug.