How balanced is this card?

[xTrainx]

If you like the "bloodied" mechanic, as well as the original abiilty:

Bloodline Cutter
If an opponent has less than ten life, ~ gets +1/+0, and has whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 4 life. If you do, that player skips their next draw step.
0/1

Not entirely sure if thats any better, but basically its a 0/1 piece of shit until you have some other method of dropping them. Then, if you are still at 20 life, you have to have another method of dealing damage, because you'll take forty by the time this little guy can kill them.

[Angelfire]

If you like the "bloodied" mechanic, as well as the original abiilty:

Bloodline Cutter
If an opponent has less than ten life, ~ gets +1/+0, and has whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 4 life. If you do, that player skips their next draw step.
0/1

Not entirely sure if thats any better, but basically its a 0/1 piece of shit until you have some other method of dropping them. Then, if you are still at 20 life, you have to have another method of dealing damage, because you'll take forty by the time this little guy can kill them.

This card is entirely awful. Chimney Imp caliber. Making your opponent skip their draw phase is brutal, but is not 0/1 for 3 who has no evasion and only kind of works if they are bloodied.

They could print
Amnesia Specter
Flying
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player they skip their draw step if they are at 10 or less life.
2/2

Make him a 1/1 and he wouldn't even see much if any play. Not nearly as good as Hypnotic with ritual and is only a lock if they have no answers in their hand and can't race you. If you lose to this locking you out, you were probably going to lose anyway.

I know this doesn't recur but they could print
Devour Hope
Target player skips their next draw step or the next time target player would draw a card, they skip it instead.

How is that better than Thoughtseize or Duress?

[(nameless one)]

thanks for the input guys but here were my guidelines (since half of this 'cube' we're building are made by us):

as much as possible:

It will cost 1CC-2CC mana to play.

Has a drawback

Will skip an opponent's draw phase.

Although what I am trying to achieve is to lock the opponent if you know you're going to win anyways (basically, you can't do the lock if you're losing).

I didnt want it to be such a broken card, just a card that will finish off an opponent faster if you are playing mono-black control/aggro-control.

I know this doesn't recur but they could print
Devour Hope
Target player skips their next draw step or the next time target player would draw a card, they skip it instead.

How is that better than Thoughtseize or Duress?

One of the cards that we made in this cube is:

Silence of the Night

Instant

Target player cannot cast spells this turn. Until the end of this turn, that player cannot activate abilities that are not mana abilities

Presence - If (legendary creature name) is on the battlefield, you may tap (legendary creature name). If do, ~ costs less to play

I know its not on the right color but we've always had this card idea way before Silence saw print (but we did borrow it from Abeyance/Orim's Chant)

[Malchar]

that player cannot activate mana abilities that are not mana abilities

@_@

[Aggro_zombies]

Bloodline Cutter

Creature - Vampire Shaman

~ has flying as long as an opponent has 10 or less life.

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may pay , exile ~, and discard your hand. If you do, that player skips his/her next draw phase.

1/1

Seems somewhat balanced now.

[Malchar]

Bloodline Cutter
Creature - Vampire Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may concede the game. If you do, that play skips his or her next draw step.
1/1

[Meekrab]

Necropotence? Really? Of all of the cards in magic, you pick that to be in the top 5 for balanced?

I think the point was that Necropotence is so ridiculous that WotC gave it the huge drawback of 'Skip your draw phase' to TRY to balance it, not so much that it was a good decision to print a card that lets you draw 19 cards for BBB.

[(nameless one)]

@_@

good find. edited, thanks

Bloodline Cutter

Creature - Vampire Shaman

~ has flying as long as an opponent has 10 or less life.

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may pay , exile ~, and discard your hand. If you do, that player skips his/her next draw phase.

1/1

I was hoping to keep it mono-black.

Amnesia Specter
Flying
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player they skip their draw step if they are at 10 or less life.
2/2

I actually like this one better but I will actually keep it as a 1/1. It is essentially a variant of Hypnotic Spectre. It is conditional but its effect is devastating.

Bloodline Cutter 3.0

Creature - Vampire Shaman

Flying

Whenever ~ deal combat damage to a player, if that player has 10 or less life that player skips his/her draw phase.

1/1

What about the above one?

Its not going to be as effective as a turn 1 Dark Rit>Hyppie but it is effective late game. It basically wins you the game if you are winning anyways.

Still broken or playable?

[Malchar]

I like the 10 life thing since it mirrors other weenie vampires, and it prevents the card from being ridiculous early game. However, adding flying is just opening a whole new can of worms. Now, you require the opponent to have a flying blocker/removal spell or lose the game. No one ever has flying, and, since it's black, it's something like twice as hard to remove. Furthermore, paying 3 for a 1/1 always feels really underwhelming, no matter how good the ability is. I would suggest removing flying, but then make the body larger to keep things fair. Alternatively, you can remove flying and shrink the mana cost while keeping a small body. I think that the ideal case would be the latter since having a large mana cost is not really prohibitive at all since the ability has already been neutered with the 10 life clause. That is, forcing the player to pay more mana for the card means that they can't play it early, but that doesn't matter since the ability will only work near the late game anyway, kind of like Dragonmaster Outcast. In conclusion, we have this:

Bloodline Cutter
Creature - Vampire Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent with 10 life or less, that player skips his or her next draw step.
1/1

There are also a variety of small functional changes that you can make to the specific ability, but that can be critiqued after the ability in question is chosen. For example, does it matter if they have 10 life before or after damage? or should it always trigger with an intervening if-clause? or for multiplayer should it work against any opponent as long as one of them has less than 10 life? etc.

[Anusien]

I don't think this sort of card would be printable. It's worse than instant speed discard because once it happens, it locks them out forever.

[(nameless one)]

I like the 10 life thing since it mirrors other weenie vampires, and it prevents the card from being ridiculous early game. However, adding flying is just opening a whole new can of worms. Now, you require the opponent to have a flying blocker/removal spell or lose the game. No one ever has flying, and, since it's black, it's something like twice as hard to remove. Furthermore, paying 3 for a 1/1 always feels really underwhelming, no matter how good the ability is. I would suggest removing flying, but then make the body larger to keep things fair. Alternatively, you can remove flying and shrink the mana cost while keeping a small body. I think that the ideal case would be the latter since having a large mana cost is not really prohibitive at all since the ability has already been neutered with the 10 life clause. That is, forcing the player to pay more mana for the card means that they can't play it early, but that doesn't matter since the ability will only work near the late game anyway, kind of like Dragonmaster Outcast. In conclusion, we have this:

Bloodline Cutter
Creature - Vampire Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent with 10 life or less, that player skips his or her next draw step.
1/1

There are also a variety of small functional changes that you can make to the specific ability, but that can be critiqued after the ability in question is chosen. For example, does it matter if they have 10 life before or after damage? or should it always trigger with an intervening if-clause? or for multiplayer should it work against any opponent as long as one of them has less than 10 life? etc.

I like the idea of it not having any evasion.

Actually, i though with that wording, the card would trigger if the opponent has 10 or less life before damage.

In a multiplayer environment, it should work on any player. If this card dealt damage to player A, the trigger effect should only work to player A, given that player A has 10 or less life. Player B should not be affected at all if this card did not deal combat damage to player B.

Make sense?

Also, I have edited the OP with Malchar's idea

[Malchar]

I didn't mean to imply that my wording or any other wording behaved in a particular way. I just meant that those kinds of questions should be asked when you decide on the final wording. For the best symmetry with existing "10-life vampires", it should be something like this:

As long as an opponent has 10 or less life, ~ has "Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player skips his or her next draw step."

which is modeled after Guul Draz Vampire.

[Angelfire]

I don't think this sort of card would be printable. It's worse than instant speed discard because once it happens, it locks them out forever.

How does this "lock them out forever"? It is only a hard lock if they are at or below 10 life, have no blockers for it, have no removal for it, have no alternative card drawing in play or in hand, and can't race you. How many creatures win you the game if they can't meet any of those requirements?

[verf]

Why not keep the original wording

"Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player skips his or her next draw step."

Make him a 2/1 for BB and has fading or vanishing 2 or 3?

[(nameless one)]

How does this "lock them out forever"? It is only a hard lock if they are at or below 10 life, have no blockers for it, have no removal for it, have no alternative card drawing in play or in hand, and can't race you. How many creatures win you the game if they can't meet any of those requirements?

You can lock them forever with the original idea:

Bloodline Cutter

Creature - Vampire Shaman

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, that player skips his/her next draw phase.

1/1

That is why I was asking to fix this card in the first place.

Why not keep the original wording

"Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player skips his or her next draw step."

Make him a 2/1 for BB and has fading or vanishing 2 or 3?

I like the bloodied mechanic better. Giving it Fading or Vanishing still makes the creature really good early game. With Dark Ritual, you can still effectively lock your opponent for a couple of turns on the early game, which sucks because you will not be able to give him a chance to respond right away.

At least with the bloodied mechanic and the frail body, you will only lock your opponent when you are already winning.