Colorless spells

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evan d

Guest
Ok, about colorless spells.

Combustion and the like could be simplified if they have a colored cost and a colorless cost
Example:
3 mana if u pay the color
5 if you pay colorless

And for the free spells, just give them a cost and "you may play this spell for free".

Agree or disagree?
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
While I think that your idea is really cool, and could be used also, I do like the inclusion of strictly colorless spells. Maybe both could be used.

One problem I see with alternate casting costs...is that if you pay a colored mana casting cost, the spell is considered to be THAT color. This first came up with the misprint in 3rd Ed. Rev. of the Serendib efreet. It was accidentally colored green, but since the mana cost was blue (islands) it was really a blue card. One way of utilzing your idea would be to make "split" cards (like Fire and Ice, Wax and Wane, etc...) but instead of being 2 different spells, have it the same spell with different casting costs. On one side the spell would be the same color as the color used, the other side would be the spell cast as colorless.
 
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Force of Will Smith

Guest
hehe.. oh man.. im not a fan of the split spells really.. but.. then again.. they haven't had a new template split card... hmm

i just never was a fan of split cards
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
I think, if it was to be a split spell, then it should be done length-ways, and the pictures should be tall and narrow to fit. (not stretched , just made in different dimensions).

I do not see any other way of doing the different mana costs while keeping the possibility of the spell being colorless. If you come up with something...let me know.
 
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Force of Will Smith

Guest
possibly they have a huge artifact cost, and an alternate cost is listed.. and wed have to give it a cool name.. like splice..
 
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jorael

Guest
Mirrodin block already gave color abilities to artifacts. for example lifegain: sun droplet, loxodon warhammer. All the towers also have an ability special to one color.

Making spells colorless doesn't sound very interesting to me and the colorless cost would have to be huge to balance the card. You can't just increase the total casting cost with 2-3 mana and make it colorless.

Invasion has sorceries (rout, twilight's call) that cost 2 more to play as an instant. How much more should it it cost to make them colorless and balanced? My guess is too much to make them playable.
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
lol, cool name huh....no idea what that would be. The idea has merit though, alternative cost in the card text. Let me know if you come up with anything.

By the way, is there any use to the Splice ability? The few cards I have seen with this on it, have a higher splice cost the the card cost, and I am not so sure that it would do any good to cast one spell, rather than two seperate spells.

Maybe I just dont quite get it...
 
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jorael

Guest
The spell you splice doesn't leave your hand. You keep it.

Example: You have 2x Glacial Ray, you can play one, splice the other on it, do more damage that way and still keep one in your hand, having only 'played' and used one of them.

It's sorta like buyback, but you need other arcane spells instead of just paying extra.

I like a lot. Some spells have an expensive splice cost, but enough cheap splice effecs exist. Soulless Revival, for example, gives any other arcane spell you play an additional "raise dead" effect for just 2 mana. :D

Susplice!
 
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evan d

Guest
I find it funny you guys only seem to care about colorless spells and not my Opinion on free spells. Oh well. I like the idea.
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
Actually, I really did not know what you meant by Free Spells, so I kinda ignored that part rather than share my ignorance with the rest of y'all, but since you brought it up. What exactly do you mean by Free Spells? Are we talking a 0 casting cost spell, and are we talking a permanent effect (as in an enchantment) or an instantaneous effect (Instant/sorcery). If it is a permanent, then dont they pretty much already have those....called non-mana producing lands? (ie. Maze of Ith, Oasis)
 
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Force of Will Smith

Guest
Free spells would mean to me:

1: spells that cost zero
2: spells that have a manaless cost (removing a card in hand)
3: Spells that you can play if you have the land (cloud of fairies)

besides its not impossible to chart how much a colorless spell would cost..

there are tons of artifact creatures that seem overcosted.. you could easily catalog what is "reasonable" for a cost, what is broken, and what sucks...

patagia golem sucks, btw..

darksteel colossus not so much...

if darksteel were green, he'd probably be 7/8

helm of obedience would probably cost 1U instead of 4
things like that.. anywhoo they looked like machines and no ones done colorless spells...
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
DarthFerret: There's other splice cards where the splice cost is less than the actual casting cost of the card, but can't remember what they are off-hand. You could try looking in Gatherer for them if you really want to, if no one else pipes in and says what they are :)
 
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jorael

Guest
I already had a link to gatherer in my previous post. That gives you a summary of all the slice spells.

Reweave is good card that costs less with splicing than casting it. And it is a blast to play! :)
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
ok thanks Spidey and Jorael

FoWS, I think colorless spells are a good idea, as I said, just would take a lot of experimentation to see what costs are reasonable. Mainly, let Oversoul test them out since he seems to be pretty good at warping a card to make it broken...LOL.. (see the entry on Time Spiral) http://www.casualplayers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14890

And as for free spells, I think they would have to be really underpowered spells, kinda like 0 level spells are. They can be useful in the right situation (I once used a 0-level spell [prestidigitation] to nudge a stick, thus catching a tent on fire, that held a Level 5 Evil Cleric, and that fire eventually killed him. [I think he blew all his saving throws...lol])

The main thing with a free spell is to make sure it is not overpowered.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Hey! Time Spiral has always been broken...

Jorael: I think there might be some sort of happy medium where colorless spells could be both fair and viable. It seems like there would be because for direct, instant speed damage to a creature or player, you could go with 2 damage at 3 mana, or move it down to 2 for 2, if 2 for 3 is not good enough...

Then again, if you're right, we won't be seeing colorless instants or sorceries printed at all, which I would like...

Hmm, maybe 4 damage to a creature at 3 mana or something...
 
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Force of Will Smith

Guest
oh man.. i disagree about the direct damage.. making a colorless direct damage spell would mean that green white and blue would have direct damage... so it would have to cost more than red direct damage and slightly more than creature kill in black... what would be fair i think would be something like..

damage/cost

3 for 5/6
2 for 4
1 for 2

versus red's

3 for 1-3
2 for 1
1 for 1+ability


[Burn] 5 instant
Deal 3 damage to target creature

and thats pretty damn good...

2 damage would probably cost 4.. but

2 colorless for 1 damage..

Imagine this...
Your opponent attacks with a serra angel... you block with your 1/1 sage owl.
then you tap 5 mana to deal 3 damage to kill it...
you're opponent would leap out of their chair..

with 5 mana blue can return all creatures to their owners hands.... or you could deal 3 damage... i think thats fair.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I don't know why you would be using Sage Owl...

I guess it would only be fair to make the colorless damage crappy, since they did the same to red...
 
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evan d

Guest
What i meant by "FREE SPELLS" was the 0 cost non-artifacts

My point was instead of meddling in the grey zone of whether or not its an arifact or colorless or colored, it would be simpler to have it be played for free.

I think you guys have the cost right for colorless burn.

For the cololess spells, the flavor text could be like"_____ Mages will do any magic if they are payed enough, They are the Mercenaries for the Mages." Like they would rather have normal payment, but if you payed enough they would do thier magic for anyone.
 
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DarthFerret

Guest
Just to remind y'all, blue did have at least 2 direct damage spells at its disposal. Psionic Blast (cost 2U and deals 4 damage to target, and 2 to you) and Pyschic Purge (cost U and deals 1 damage to any target, if it is caused to be discarded, deals 5 damge to the controller of that cause.)

I understand that it isn't a whole lot, but it is an example about what has crossed over. (Psionic Blast was in the original 300 card print) Not sure if the accesibility of an effect to a color should really be one of the deciding factors in cost. I think it should be based more along the lines of the fact that ANY mana can be used to pay ANY part of the cost, there is not speed restriction for multi-color magic decks. (Sliver Queen would be worth her weight in gold if she only cost 5 colorless...lol)
 
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Force of Will Smith

Guest
Oooooo..... i like the wording on that but,... it would need a slick name..

theyd be kinda like the bringers..
 
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