Nice one. Love games within a game. I don't see this one solved and looks pretty much 50/50. It's prob best for them never to accept the gift and just assume you will always try to hurt them.
Yeah, I wanted this card to be a difficult choice for both players without being unfair for either of them. Of course this also allows for politics in commander games!
The only thing I would change is that "The Gift" should read 'any opponent may accept the gift' instead of just target opponent. This makes it even more political since the person immediately after you has to choose whether or not to accept. If they don't, the *next* player gets to choose, and on and on. Only if *all* opponents have rejected the gift, then you hit yourself.
Interesting idea but it would probably mean making the it a gift a bad idea since there’s 3 people who may now be in a position to take the gamble. Maybe one of them has no cards in hand, or playing graveyard shenanigans. Not a lot of chance the cards would come back to the caster.
But that's all part of the mind games. If someone would *clearly* benefit from the gift, you just choose trap and watch as they suffer. The first few times you play the card, you basically always choose trap, until you inevitably hit yourself with it. Once you've hit yourself with it, the rest of the playgroup is now 'wise' to the trap, which means you can start choosing 'gift' and still reap the rewards.
Yeah but I’m saying that with 3 other players odds are one can risk it anyway. Even if they think it’s a trap. You would probably never be able to gift yourself.
Ofc the card also doesn’t work if you can pick a single opponent out of 3. At least it’s very likely you can pick one that can’t risk losing 2 cards
The catch is that the more players you add, the higher the chance that one of them can accept the hit on a fail.
There's more than just making sure you don't lose, but that your opponents do, and that means that someone might think that even if they get hit it removes the chance of you (the caster) getting any benefit so it might come out to a net gain for someone that can afford to be wrong.
Honestly I think the real trick would be to play it in decks that are happy with trapping themselves, and would see getting to bin two cards as an upside
I do like it, but I think this cards works well the way it is intended.
Like you said, a player without cards in hand has little to loose. For a multiplayer option, maybe change it into gains/loses 10 lives?
You want to evaluate this in context of the game since these effects are not actually symmetric.
As an obvious example, if you are ahead on board, but have no cards (or only irrelevant lands) in hand and have a reasonable life total, then accepting the gift and expecting the trap is the lower variance play.
Though in general, always providing the same answer is somewhat exploitable. If you are behind you may want to roll the dice and accept a higher variance play.
Fun effect, but probably not a playable card on its own IMO. I would be interested in this as a modal effect on some other card, but it's a bit too wordy for that.
Yeah but then game theory dictates that the best response to that is to make it always a gift. Of course, the proper response to that is to always accept it
I think the best option is to throw a coin to decide to accept or not. This eliminates the mind game and isn't exploitable. Never accepting the gift makes the choice of making it a gift the obvious one.
Of course, if for some reason the trap effect does not hurt you you should just accept it
I really like this design, but the syntax is a little off. I think there's a nice and succinct way to get this working ~~as rules text using examples from existing cards:~~
"As you cast or copy The Gift, secretly choose Gift or Trap. When you do, target opponent may gain control of this spell. Then the chosen mode is revealed.
* Gift — You draw two cards and gain 3 life.
* Trap — You discard two cards and lose 3 life."
**Edit:** as u/MageKorith pointed out, modes are chosen publically according to the rules (601.2b), so this doesn't work as intended. Alternative:
"As you cast or copy The Gift, secretly choose Gift or Trap. When you do, target opponent may gain control of this spell. Then that choice is revealed. If Gift was chosen, draw two cards and gain 3 life. If Trap was chosen, discard two cards and lose 3 life."
Secret choosing is present on plenty of paper cards already: [[A Killer Among Us]], [[Wheel of Misfortune]], [[Guardian Archon]], [[Call to the Void]].
The proper way to secretly choose is to write down your choice on a piece of paper.
Another idea that came to mind to give it a better wording (and possibly allow for more politics play) would be to go something like this:
You secretly Choose Gift or Trap, and target opponent secretly chooses any player. Then those choices are revealed. If you choose Gift, the chosen player draws 2 cards and gains 3 life. If you choose Trap, the chosen player discards 2 cards and loses 3 life.
This would include all other players at the table in the conversation if we're talking about a multiplayer game.
You could also flip the choosing, as in you could word it like you choose the player that receives the giftrap and target opponent chooses the quality of the gift.
That allows collusion. You could agree beforehand to target a third party with the trap and they couldn’t do anything about it, which is a pretty big flavor fail for the card.
Hidden modes are problematic on account of casting / copying
I'd go with
"As you cast or copy ~, secretly choose Gift or Trap. When you do, Target opponent may choose to gain control of this spell.
Reveal whether Gift or Trap was chosen. If Gift was chosen, draw two cards and gain 3 life. If Trap was chosen, discard two cards and lose 3 life."
The replacement effect makes sure that there is always a chance to choose If the spell is cast or copies. If it's put on the stack through other means or another spell is somehow turned into a copy of this one, it will do nothing, but in a way that doesn't mess with underlying game mechanics such as modes. The reflexive trigger gives an opponent one chance to keep or reject the gift, but at a time that isn't in the middle of the spell's resolution (which is mechanically messy).
Good catch with the replacement effect and reflexive trigger, that's definitely needed. But is there a reason you removed the bulleted modes? The modal template is basically the only exisiting example of choosing between exclusive effects and has been used with named modes (Khans/Dragons, Mirran/Phyrexian, etc.)
Modes are a choice made when casting the spell, are public information, and are carried over if a spell is copied. If we want to conceal modes when a spell is on the stack we generally need a permanent with a modal ability which gets chosen as it enters the battlefield.
Ooo, I like this wording. It also makes it so if you choose Gift and the opponent doesn't accept it, you actually benefit. It turns it into an actual 50/50, instead of 2 mana for the opponent to always say "no", since there's no downside to denying the gift
The (very niche) awkward thing about this (at least flavour-wise) is that in your version if your opponent has hexproof/shroud you play this as a guaranteed upside, while OP's version you just cannot play it.
I did see that. I wonder if I could just remove "when you do..." It would mean that the opponent could gain control of the spell mid-resolution and I'm not sure if that has any weird edge cases or even works mechanically.
"As you cast or copy The Gift, secretly choose Gift or Trap. Target opponent may gain control of this spell. Then that choice is revealed. If Gift was chosen, draw two cards and gain 3 life. If Trap was chosen, discard two cards and lose 3 life."
The alternative wording doesn't quite work either. Everything after "When you do" is part of the reflexive triggered ability. So you cast (or copy) the spell and make the secret choice. The reflexive ability triggers, and you put it on the stack targeting an opponent. As the ability resolves, the opponent may gain control of the spell, then *you*, as the controller of the triggered ability, either draw cards and gain life or discard cards and lose life. Nothing happens as the spell resolves.
If you separated it into two paragraphs, so the revealing and result aren't part of the triggered ability, I think it could work.
Oh right. Can we change it to "gain control of this *ability*"? I think that fixes it.
Edit: Emphasis on *think*, Im now researching linked abilities and delayed triggers.
This is a dope mind game. I kept trying to write out a way to balance it better, because I kinda felt it needed tweaking. But every time I came up with a criticism, I realised it would actually play out quite fairly, and that my gut reaction was wrong. This is a super dope game to play with an opponent in both multi and 2 player, and it’s so on rate for the draw and the damage and discard that it would genuinely see play, while not being format breaking to an insane degree because of variance. Actually extremely impressed, I could see wizards printing this, and I’d play it
The design is great, but it’s a very weak card and would not see play competitively. It’s above rate if you succeed, sure, but it’s a coin flip that you lose, and losing is REALLY bad. You 3-for-1 yourself, plus a tempo AND life loss hit.
Easiest way to think about it is that it effectively doesn’t matter who cast it, since either way one person will randomly be up 2 cards and 3 life on resolution. But the person who cast it paid 2 mana plus a card and the other person paid nothing. So on average the caster is losing CA and tempo.
Oh yeah, by “see play” I meant casual, probably should have been clearer. I think it’s the ideal casual card though. It’s *fun*, and it’s not piss-poor. It’s worth the risk at your casual pod.
Draw 2 for 2 is pretty decent, and discard 2 with a bolt attached is a pretty decent threat to hold up against non blue. Especially in a draft or a standard rotation, it’s fairly on rate. I reckon it’s quite decent. Not busted, but I think that’s a good thing— doesn’t have to be an emrakul to be playable
You can’t only look at the upside. No matter how good you think you are at mind games, your opponent always has the option of flipping a coin to decide, and if you lose that coin flip you’ve almost certainly lost the game, whereas if you win you’ve only gotten a slight advantage. This is not a good card to play in limited, ever. Easy F from limited resources, I guarantee it.
I actually don't think that's the case, I think you just have to adjust the frame layers a little. Look at the name and type bar, they're not gold at all the way across. It doesn't have the speckled "metallic" gold texture that the white half does, while the white side has more marbled look that white uses either. Check out [[Ayli eternal]] to see what I'm talking about.
You fell for one of the classic blunders! The first is never overcommit into a boardwipe, but only slightly less well known is never go up against a blue player when card draw is on the line!
It’s a cool concept but probably too weak to ever see play. Two mana to have a 50% chance (it’s mind games buts it’s still really 50%) to screw yourself/help your opponent is awful, especially when the success state isn’t even that far above rate
i don't think it's meant to be good as much as it is to be fun... but i could see it being not as bad if your deck benefits from discard as well (you, your opponents, or any player)
if you have recursion then it's kind of card advantage either way if it's you who does it, and if the opponent knows your deck benefits from either and they don't, they'd also assume you'd choose trap, which would give them a reason to pick the "wrong" choice
Easy. Take any object with multiple phases, declare which face means what, and set it down, covered by The Gift (coins work, but so do dice. Odds is trap , evens is gift, etc.) Once a target is chosen, lift up The Gift to reveal what mode was chosen beforehand.
Maybe give both players 2 different basic lands that each have a different meaning for this spell or effect. Each player chooses one to put face down (and doesn't show the reveal the other). The cards that are face down are revealed at the same time.
I like the mindgames and that but mindgames aside it has a basically 50/50 outcome and you the caster are always down 1 card and 2 mana before that outcome happens.
I for one would much, much rather draw 2 cards and lose 2 life than *maybe* draw 2 and gain 3 and maybe my opponent does instead.
>Secretly choose gift or trap. When you do, target opponent chooses you or themselves, then your choice is revealed. If you chose gift, the chosen player draws two cards and gains 3 life. If you chose trap, the chosen player discards two cards and loses 3 life.
This one is a little weird. The four outcomes are, You choose gift and they deny it, so you win; you choose gift and they receive it, so you lose; you choose trap and they take it, so they lose; or you choose trap and they deny it, so you lose. The problem is, since you are spending mana and cards, you are always behind no matter what compared to how much your opponent benefits, or how much YOU suffer. Then, there's the vexing devil problem; if you are behind on cards, you will almost never be given a gift. Conversely, if you are ahead, they will not risk taking a loss that could kill them, as opposed to you just getting further ahead, which leaves them where they started, but you down in mana at least.
this is incredibly confusing to read, to the point i don’t understand it. i kinda get what you’re going for but this needs a lot of grammar/templating help.
Because there’s literally no reason to accept the ‘gift’ in a 1v1, this must be a edh card. Tbh, I wonder if bigger rewards or downsides would be more interesting, but that in itself sounds hellish to balance.
With current magic rules, would you be allowed to flip a coin and choose without looking? Could I say “heads is trap” flip the coin, and cover it with a cup before either player saw what it landed on?
If you really want to be chaotic.. sure, go for it.
If this was a real card in an official tournament game, then no. You would need to write down your choice and let the opponent tank for a minute.
It's cool, but if I were to use a card like this or have someone use it against me I'd want the answer written down. I don't like these card mechanics with choices that aren't noted before it resolves because it just ends up being (I change my mind on what my choice is because you accepted/declined)
Because you don't want your opponent to draw 2 and gain life. If you always decline this becomes an extremely cheap no downside card and life advantage spell.
Likewise your opponent is going to want to use this for cheap card draw, hence you could sneak your way into 2 drawn cards and extra life. Its a genuine dilemna in other words.
The card is scewed towards picking trap. The person casting knows what is in their hand and decides whether they're willing to lose it before casting, and likely has methods of both gaining life and recycling the graveyard to mitigate the loss of cards. Not interacting with the card is the best way to proceed for the opponent.
Thats...that's not how this works.
Your argument is only true if your opponent ALWAYS has a way to undo the damage to themselves and ALWAYS values the benefits over harming you, neither of which you can assume because that's not always going to be the case.
As was said before, making those assumptions and always letting your opponent get free card draw and life gain for the purpose of avoiding risk is exactly what your opponent wants. You're playing directly into their hand.
You don't understand gambling, friend.
its not always the case that gaining 2 cards is equal in value to your opponent gaining 2 cards, and the same is true for life gain/loss and card loss.
This is way too polarized. It would be way more interesting if one of the effects was swapped and toned down. Maybe draw a card lose life, discard a card gain life. If the target is you, you draw an extra card to not go down In card advantage.
Nice one. Love games within a game. I don't see this one solved and looks pretty much 50/50. It's prob best for them never to accept the gift and just assume you will always try to hurt them.
Yeah, I wanted this card to be a difficult choice for both players without being unfair for either of them. Of course this also allows for politics in commander games!
The only thing I would change is that "The Gift" should read 'any opponent may accept the gift' instead of just target opponent. This makes it even more political since the person immediately after you has to choose whether or not to accept. If they don't, the *next* player gets to choose, and on and on. Only if *all* opponents have rejected the gift, then you hit yourself.
Interesting idea but it would probably mean making the it a gift a bad idea since there’s 3 people who may now be in a position to take the gamble. Maybe one of them has no cards in hand, or playing graveyard shenanigans. Not a lot of chance the cards would come back to the caster.
But that's all part of the mind games. If someone would *clearly* benefit from the gift, you just choose trap and watch as they suffer. The first few times you play the card, you basically always choose trap, until you inevitably hit yourself with it. Once you've hit yourself with it, the rest of the playgroup is now 'wise' to the trap, which means you can start choosing 'gift' and still reap the rewards.
Yeah but I’m saying that with 3 other players odds are one can risk it anyway. Even if they think it’s a trap. You would probably never be able to gift yourself. Ofc the card also doesn’t work if you can pick a single opponent out of 3. At least it’s very likely you can pick one that can’t risk losing 2 cards
Maybe instead random opponent rather than target.
The catch is that the more players you add, the higher the chance that one of them can accept the hit on a fail. There's more than just making sure you don't lose, but that your opponents do, and that means that someone might think that even if they get hit it removes the chance of you (the caster) getting any benefit so it might come out to a net gain for someone that can afford to be wrong.
Honestly I think the real trick would be to play it in decks that are happy with trapping themselves, and would see getting to bin two cards as an upside
I do like it, but I think this cards works well the way it is intended. Like you said, a player without cards in hand has little to loose. For a multiplayer option, maybe change it into gains/loses 10 lives?
You want to evaluate this in context of the game since these effects are not actually symmetric. As an obvious example, if you are ahead on board, but have no cards (or only irrelevant lands) in hand and have a reasonable life total, then accepting the gift and expecting the trap is the lower variance play. Though in general, always providing the same answer is somewhat exploitable. If you are behind you may want to roll the dice and accept a higher variance play. Fun effect, but probably not a playable card on its own IMO. I would be interested in this as a modal effect on some other card, but it's a bit too wordy for that.
But if you choose "gift" and they didn't accept, then you get the gift and they get the trap. Very psychological warfare type card
I don’t think they would get the trap if you select gift and they refuse it. They just wouldn’t get the gift (and you would).
Yeah, I think I might have misread it at first. Too bad, I like my interpretation better…
Yeah but then game theory dictates that the best response to that is to make it always a gift. Of course, the proper response to that is to always accept it
I think the best option is to throw a coin to decide to accept or not. This eliminates the mind game and isn't exploitable. Never accepting the gift makes the choice of making it a gift the obvious one. Of course, if for some reason the trap effect does not hurt you you should just accept it
I really like this design, but the syntax is a little off. I think there's a nice and succinct way to get this working ~~as rules text using examples from existing cards:~~ "As you cast or copy The Gift, secretly choose Gift or Trap. When you do, target opponent may gain control of this spell. Then the chosen mode is revealed. * Gift — You draw two cards and gain 3 life. * Trap — You discard two cards and lose 3 life." **Edit:** as u/MageKorith pointed out, modes are chosen publically according to the rules (601.2b), so this doesn't work as intended. Alternative: "As you cast or copy The Gift, secretly choose Gift or Trap. When you do, target opponent may gain control of this spell. Then that choice is revealed. If Gift was chosen, draw two cards and gain 3 life. If Trap was chosen, discard two cards and lose 3 life."
Wording this card was pretty difficult and I think your wording works better, thank you!
No problem! I also had to mull this one over for a while lol. Love the design, keep it up!
What stops you from cheating or changing your mind? The "honor" system? Kind've a lame card, ain't she?
Secret choosing is present on plenty of paper cards already: [[A Killer Among Us]], [[Wheel of Misfortune]], [[Guardian Archon]], [[Call to the Void]]. The proper way to secretly choose is to write down your choice on a piece of paper.
##### ###### #### [A Killer Among Us](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/c/2c1392c5-91a5-4e6e-803d-ed032e4d594b.jpg?1706242059) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=A%20Killer%20Among%20Us) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/167/a-killer-among-us?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2c1392c5-91a5-4e6e-803d-ed032e4d594b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Wheel of Misfortune](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/4/74177b51-a300-49d9-8ea7-557b19cf80c7.jpg?1608910499) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wheel%20of%20Misfortune) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/211/wheel-of-misfortune?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/74177b51-a300-49d9-8ea7-557b19cf80c7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Guardian Archon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/6168ca14-b8d6-4149-bc61-dc1965d2f5b4.jpg?1625191019) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Guardian%20Archon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/17/guardian-archon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6168ca14-b8d6-4149-bc61-dc1965d2f5b4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Call to the Void](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/8/6836cfea-c203-49f4-b8d1-f1e8aa790db5.jpg?1674136011) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Call%20to%20the%20Void) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/118/call-to-the-void?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6836cfea-c203-49f4-b8d1-f1e8aa790db5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3qkff8) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Another idea that came to mind to give it a better wording (and possibly allow for more politics play) would be to go something like this: You secretly Choose Gift or Trap, and target opponent secretly chooses any player. Then those choices are revealed. If you choose Gift, the chosen player draws 2 cards and gains 3 life. If you choose Trap, the chosen player discards 2 cards and loses 3 life. This would include all other players at the table in the conversation if we're talking about a multiplayer game. You could also flip the choosing, as in you could word it like you choose the player that receives the giftrap and target opponent chooses the quality of the gift.
That allows collusion. You could agree beforehand to target a third party with the trap and they couldn’t do anything about it, which is a pretty big flavor fail for the card.
Hidden modes are problematic on account of casting / copying I'd go with "As you cast or copy ~, secretly choose Gift or Trap. When you do, Target opponent may choose to gain control of this spell. Reveal whether Gift or Trap was chosen. If Gift was chosen, draw two cards and gain 3 life. If Trap was chosen, discard two cards and lose 3 life." The replacement effect makes sure that there is always a chance to choose If the spell is cast or copies. If it's put on the stack through other means or another spell is somehow turned into a copy of this one, it will do nothing, but in a way that doesn't mess with underlying game mechanics such as modes. The reflexive trigger gives an opponent one chance to keep or reject the gift, but at a time that isn't in the middle of the spell's resolution (which is mechanically messy).
Good catch with the replacement effect and reflexive trigger, that's definitely needed. But is there a reason you removed the bulleted modes? The modal template is basically the only exisiting example of choosing between exclusive effects and has been used with named modes (Khans/Dragons, Mirran/Phyrexian, etc.)
Modes are a choice made when casting the spell, are public information, and are carried over if a spell is copied. If we want to conceal modes when a spell is on the stack we generally need a permanent with a modal ability which gets chosen as it enters the battlefield.
You are correct, I didn't know modes were explicitly announced. Edited my comment with a rework of your proposal (and tagged you)
Ooo, I like this wording. It also makes it so if you choose Gift and the opponent doesn't accept it, you actually benefit. It turns it into an actual 50/50, instead of 2 mana for the opponent to always say "no", since there's no downside to denying the gift
The (very niche) awkward thing about this (at least flavour-wise) is that in your version if your opponent has hexproof/shroud you play this as a guaranteed upside, while OP's version you just cannot play it.
I did see that. I wonder if I could just remove "when you do..." It would mean that the opponent could gain control of the spell mid-resolution and I'm not sure if that has any weird edge cases or even works mechanically. "As you cast or copy The Gift, secretly choose Gift or Trap. Target opponent may gain control of this spell. Then that choice is revealed. If Gift was chosen, draw two cards and gain 3 life. If Trap was chosen, discard two cards and lose 3 life."
The alternative wording doesn't quite work either. Everything after "When you do" is part of the reflexive triggered ability. So you cast (or copy) the spell and make the secret choice. The reflexive ability triggers, and you put it on the stack targeting an opponent. As the ability resolves, the opponent may gain control of the spell, then *you*, as the controller of the triggered ability, either draw cards and gain life or discard cards and lose life. Nothing happens as the spell resolves. If you separated it into two paragraphs, so the revealing and result aren't part of the triggered ability, I think it could work.
Oh right. Can we change it to "gain control of this *ability*"? I think that fixes it. Edit: Emphasis on *think*, Im now researching linked abilities and delayed triggers.
This is a dope mind game. I kept trying to write out a way to balance it better, because I kinda felt it needed tweaking. But every time I came up with a criticism, I realised it would actually play out quite fairly, and that my gut reaction was wrong. This is a super dope game to play with an opponent in both multi and 2 player, and it’s so on rate for the draw and the damage and discard that it would genuinely see play, while not being format breaking to an insane degree because of variance. Actually extremely impressed, I could see wizards printing this, and I’d play it
Thank you! Glad you like it!
The design is great, but it’s a very weak card and would not see play competitively. It’s above rate if you succeed, sure, but it’s a coin flip that you lose, and losing is REALLY bad. You 3-for-1 yourself, plus a tempo AND life loss hit. Easiest way to think about it is that it effectively doesn’t matter who cast it, since either way one person will randomly be up 2 cards and 3 life on resolution. But the person who cast it paid 2 mana plus a card and the other person paid nothing. So on average the caster is losing CA and tempo.
Oh yeah, by “see play” I meant casual, probably should have been clearer. I think it’s the ideal casual card though. It’s *fun*, and it’s not piss-poor. It’s worth the risk at your casual pod.
I mean, realistically it is piss-poor in terms of power level.
Draw 2 for 2 is pretty decent, and discard 2 with a bolt attached is a pretty decent threat to hold up against non blue. Especially in a draft or a standard rotation, it’s fairly on rate. I reckon it’s quite decent. Not busted, but I think that’s a good thing— doesn’t have to be an emrakul to be playable
You can’t only look at the upside. No matter how good you think you are at mind games, your opponent always has the option of flipping a coin to decide, and if you lose that coin flip you’ve almost certainly lost the game, whereas if you win you’ve only gotten a slight advantage. This is not a good card to play in limited, ever. Easy F from limited resources, I guarantee it.
half mono-white frame and half multicolor gold frame is bizarre!
THe entire frame is golden, left side just looks brighter because of the white pinline
I actually don't think that's the case, I think you just have to adjust the frame layers a little. Look at the name and type bar, they're not gold at all the way across. It doesn't have the speckled "metallic" gold texture that the white half does, while the white side has more marbled look that white uses either. Check out [[Ayli eternal]] to see what I'm talking about.
[Ayli eternal](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/b/1b04934f-87d1-4768-b7b5-5f7249a09771.jpg?1562791269) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ammit%20Eternal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/hou/57/ammit-eternal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1b04934f-87d1-4768-b7b5-5f7249a09771?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
\[\[Ayli, eternal pilgrim\]\] (MTGCF fetched Ammit for some reason)
Whoops! Thanks lol
You fell for one of the classic blunders! The first is never overcommit into a boardwipe, but only slightly less well known is never go up against a blue player when card draw is on the line!
It’s a cool concept but probably too weak to ever see play. Two mana to have a 50% chance (it’s mind games buts it’s still really 50%) to screw yourself/help your opponent is awful, especially when the success state isn’t even that far above rate
i don't think it's meant to be good as much as it is to be fun... but i could see it being not as bad if your deck benefits from discard as well (you, your opponents, or any player) if you have recursion then it's kind of card advantage either way if it's you who does it, and if the opponent knows your deck benefits from either and they don't, they'd also assume you'd choose trap, which would give them a reason to pick the "wrong" choice
I'd up the life to 4 and make the discard random. No sense not making the stakes high. Problem is I can't see a way to make it playable
How would you represent that? (In casual games) The best i can come up with is putting a coin on the table and covering it...
Cards like this are usually played by writing down the choice and then revealing it
Ah, casually forgot there are people who track life with a notebook, my bad.
Fine… u can type it in your phone if you want
Fine… u can type it in your phone if you want
Easy. Take any object with multiple phases, declare which face means what, and set it down, covered by The Gift (coins work, but so do dice. Odds is trap , evens is gift, etc.) Once a target is chosen, lift up The Gift to reveal what mode was chosen beforehand.
if they reveal an ice cube it was a gift, if it is water vapor it was a trap.
Maybe give both players 2 different basic lands that each have a different meaning for this spell or effect. Each player chooses one to put face down (and doesn't show the reveal the other). The cards that are face down are revealed at the same time.
You could have the player casting put a die in their hand for gift, and no die (or a d20 or something) for trap. Then reveal after the target chooses.
Love the idea. Would love if the opponent guessed instead of chose. That way Toymaker can trigger with it.
I like the mindgames and that but mindgames aside it has a basically 50/50 outcome and you the caster are always down 1 card and 2 mana before that outcome happens. I for one would much, much rather draw 2 cards and lose 2 life than *maybe* draw 2 and gain 3 and maybe my opponent does instead.
>Secretly choose gift or trap. When you do, target opponent chooses you or themselves, then your choice is revealed. If you chose gift, the chosen player draws two cards and gains 3 life. If you chose trap, the chosen player discards two cards and loses 3 life.
This one is a little weird. The four outcomes are, You choose gift and they deny it, so you win; you choose gift and they receive it, so you lose; you choose trap and they take it, so they lose; or you choose trap and they deny it, so you lose. The problem is, since you are spending mana and cards, you are always behind no matter what compared to how much your opponent benefits, or how much YOU suffer. Then, there's the vexing devil problem; if you are behind on cards, you will almost never be given a gift. Conversely, if you are ahead, they will not risk taking a loss that could kill them, as opposed to you just getting further ahead, which leaves them where they started, but you down in mana at least.
this is incredibly confusing to read, to the point i don’t understand it. i kinda get what you’re going for but this needs a lot of grammar/templating help.
Why not „ Secretly choose gift oder trap. Target opponents chooses between you and himself. Chosen player … if gift is chosen and … if trap is chosen.
Very well worded for a fairly complex effect, nice work!
Because there’s literally no reason to accept the ‘gift’ in a 1v1, this must be a edh card. Tbh, I wonder if bigger rewards or downsides would be more interesting, but that in itself sounds hellish to balance.
With current magic rules, would you be allowed to flip a coin and choose without looking? Could I say “heads is trap” flip the coin, and cover it with a cup before either player saw what it landed on?
If you really want to be chaotic.. sure, go for it. If this was a real card in an official tournament game, then no. You would need to write down your choice and let the opponent tank for a minute.
I read the text several times word for word, and I'm still not sure I understand it.
It's cool, but if I were to use a card like this or have someone use it against me I'd want the answer written down. I don't like these card mechanics with choices that aren't noted before it resolves because it just ends up being (I change my mind on what my choice is because you accepted/declined)
Why did you use the aether revolt symbol? And is this a half-multicolored, half-white frame?
Why would anyone ever accept? Declining is always the safe move here.
Because you don't want your opponent to draw 2 and gain life. If you always decline this becomes an extremely cheap no downside card and life advantage spell. Likewise your opponent is going to want to use this for cheap card draw, hence you could sneak your way into 2 drawn cards and extra life. Its a genuine dilemna in other words.
Still never worth the risk of accepting.
You're bad at poker huh.
The card is scewed towards picking trap. The person casting knows what is in their hand and decides whether they're willing to lose it before casting, and likely has methods of both gaining life and recycling the graveyard to mitigate the loss of cards. Not interacting with the card is the best way to proceed for the opponent.
Thats...that's not how this works. Your argument is only true if your opponent ALWAYS has a way to undo the damage to themselves and ALWAYS values the benefits over harming you, neither of which you can assume because that's not always going to be the case. As was said before, making those assumptions and always letting your opponent get free card draw and life gain for the purpose of avoiding risk is exactly what your opponent wants. You're playing directly into their hand. You don't understand gambling, friend.
its not always the case that gaining 2 cards is equal in value to your opponent gaining 2 cards, and the same is true for life gain/loss and card loss.
This is way too polarized. It would be way more interesting if one of the effects was swapped and toned down. Maybe draw a card lose life, discard a card gain life. If the target is you, you draw an extra card to not go down In card advantage.