How balanced is this card?

[(nameless one)]

Alright, me and a couple of buddies came out with this card and were planning to use it in our cube draft.



Bloodline Cutter :b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

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

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

1/1

What do you think should be the rarity of this card?

Is the card broken or jank?

Would this card be playable in Legacy if a functional version saw print?

Thanks


EDIT:

With realizing how broken the card is, I tried fixing it using posted existing cards below as guidelines

Heres some other ideas


Bloodline Coagulator :b::b::b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

Pay 5 life: Exile ~. Any player may activate this ability but only during his/her turn.

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

2/2

or


Bloodline Cutter :b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

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

0/1


One of the things that I've change is add the 'you may discard your hand' drawback. On top of it, there is another drawback hoping it would balance its brokeness.


Edit 2.0

I actually like what Malchar proposed.

theres the 3.0 Version:


Bloodline Cutter :b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

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

1/1

Its has the Zendikar weenie Vampire flavor. That same flavor prevents the card from being broken. It still can lock opponents late game but it will can only lock an opponent if you are winning anyways. Agree?

[Otter]

It looks fundamentally unfun. If they don't have an immediate answer to it, they'll never be able to get an answer to it. Yeah, they can block him or kill him as a 1/1, but that doesn't make his effect very interesting. If your opponent has a slight hiccup, he locks them out of the game. A card that either does nothing or is unbeatable seems lame.

For instance, what happens if your opponent leads with Rit, Thoughtseize (taking your cheap removal spell or blocker), this guy? If you're not holding a second removal spell or enough land in your hand to cast your more expensive answers, the game is already over.

[Maveric78f]

It's not balanced at all. It should have a strong drawback such as "if this leaves play, discard your hand".

[Sevryn]

Attacking the draw step is very much on the brutal side of Magic, and 1 mana is too cheap for such an effect (and one-sided, at that). Possessed Portal costs 8 mana, and hits both players' draw steps.

Suggestion:


Bloodline Cutter :b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

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

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, put a blood counter on ~.

If an opponent would draw a card besides the first one drawn in their draw step, you may remove a blood counter from ~. If you do, that player skips that draw instead.

1/1

Kind of wall-of-text, but it has the same flavor without being a 1 mana lock-out. Turns it into a cheap way to fight cantrips, which seems what the power level of a 1 mana black creature should be (especially since it can eventually fly). Unless you aren't concerned about power level, in which case you can have it make them skip their draw step AND untap step. Fun stuff.


EDIT: this could of course be made more powerful by getting 2 blood counters instead of 1, or by allowing non-combat damage to trigger it, or even by adding life loss onto the skipped draw.

[Forbiddian]

This card is broken as fuck, and retardedly unfun to play against, since it can literally win the game on turn 1 (if your opponent doesn't have an answer).

Secondly: There's no good answer to this card. It only costs 1. The cheapest removal in the format is 1. Even if you swords it immediately, the player running this missed out on nothing.

If you can't swords it immediately (like: you don't have an answer at all), then you lose. If you have to wait to answer it (like a blocker), your opponent just 2:1'd you with a card that only costs B.


The card is more or less a Hypnotic Specter that costs 1, except this one doesn't even let your opponent draw into an answer and is insane off the top as well (whereas a Hypnotic Specter doesn't do much in a topdeck war).

Or he's a Goblin Lackey for B that doesn't require you to play Goblins or have a good Goblin. I dunno, there's no analog, because Wizards never did something dumb like print "U for a 1/1, when it deals combat damage to a player, draw a card." But this card is better than that.


If this card cost 1B it would see a lot of play in every format, and probably see lots of play in Legacy (although there aren't good black creature decks now, this card would be around as good as Bob -- tougher conditions, but no life loss). Costing just B it would fundamentally alter the way that Magic is played for the worse.

Unless your cube has like Black Lotus every third pack and people are just going for the combo kill anyway, this card is way too broken.

[chokin]

This card is insanely overpowered. You might as well have written "Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, take another turn", because your opponent needs to have:
a) a cheap removal spell in hand
b) countered it
c) a blocker with the hopes you have no removal

If they cant draw cards, they can't effectively play their decks to potentially counteract this creature.

This card would see play in every format if printed. I think Hand/Land Hate decks would cream themselves since it makes their disruption a hell of a lot more potent.

I think that Forbiddian's U for a 1/1 Curiousity Creature is vastly more fair, but still way overpowered. What were you guys thinking?

[Loxodon Baileyarch]

So it's Yata-Garasu?

Idk if anyone gets this reference.:laugh:

[(nameless one)]

Would it be balanced if it costed :b::b::b: or :3::b: to play?


It's not balanced at all. It should have a strong drawback such as "if this leaves play, discard your hand".

Maybe this:


Bloodline Cutter :b::b::b:

Creature- Vampire Shaman

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

2/2


What about now?

[Nightmare]

There is no way this will be balanced with the words

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

on it, unless it's a 6 or 7 mana guy (at Mythic) with no evasion. That effect is FAR too powerful to be printed any other way. Consider the fact that there are exactly three cards in existence that say your opponent skips their draw step:

Possessed Portal
Fatespinner
Fatigue


One is 8 mana and symmetrical.
One is a creature that gives them the option to not skip the draw.
One is a one-shot effect.

This gives you some insight into how overpowered this ability is. It's a one card prison deck, a-la Zur's Weirding, which simultaneously has no drawback and wins the game.

[DrJones]

Consider these as a source of inspiration and game balance:
Volrath's Dungeon
Necropotence
Lethal Vapors
Maralen of the Mornsong
Chains of Mephistopheles

[(nameless one)]

I updated the OP and added more drawback ideas.

[emidln]

Game Balance
....
Necropotence
....


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

[Malchar]

Go back to the original wording (other others are way too clunky, especially the one for BBB), but make it so the opponent draws three (or some other number) when ~ leaves play. The "punishment" should fit the crime.

Bloodline Cutter :B:
Creature - Vampire Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player skips his or her next draw step.
When ~ leaves play, each opponent may draw three cards.
1/1

[(nameless one)]

Go back to the original wording (other others are way too clunky, especially the one for BBB), but make it so the opponent draws three (or some other number) when ~ leaves play. The "punishment" should fit the crime.

Bloodline Cutter :B:
Creature - Vampire Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player skips his or her next draw step.
When ~ leaves play, each opponent may draw three cards.
1/1

The thing that was mentioned above though is that once its online, its a one-card prison.

The drawback that you mentioned above does not really matter because once its online, theres nothing you can do about it.

On version 2.1, I added the "pay 5 life" drawback so that the opponent can deal with it without having anything (given that he/she has more than 5 life). It also costed more than the original to cast.

On version 2.2, I turned it into a 0/1 so your opponent could actually buy time while you are trying to set it up to attack. The 0/1 clause also makes its attack conditional.

Not to mentioned that you have to discard your hand to activate it.

[Nightmare]

Go back to the original wording (other others are way too clunky, especially the one for BBB), but make it so the opponent draws three (or some other number) when ~ leaves play. The "punishment" should fit the crime.

Bloodline Cutter :B:
Creature - Vampire Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player skips his or her next draw step.
When ~ leaves play, each opponent may draw three cards.
1/1

This doesn't FIX anything, though. It still says:

":b: - if your opponent doesn't have an answer in hand right now, or next turn, they never get a chance to draw one. You win the game."

[Kuma]

Bloodline Cutter :b:

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice ~. If you do, that player skips his next draw step.

1/1

------------------------

Bloodline Cutter :2::b:

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

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice a creature. If you do, that player skips his next draw step.

2/1

Or if you want something more like the original post...

Bloodline Cutter :4::b::b:

Flying

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, you may pay 3 life. If you do, that player skips his next draw step.

3/4

[Jeff Kruchkow]

So it's Yata-Garasu?

Idk if anyone gets this reference.:laugh:

I do.
And forcing your opponent to skip draws needs to ba attached to something with a huge cc or an even more massive drawback. The fact is locking your opponentout of draws on the first few turns is essentially gg.

[lolz]

That card is absurd.

[Malchar]

This doesn't FIX anything, though. It still says:

":b: - if your opponent doesn't have an answer in hand right now, or next turn, they never get a chance to draw one. You win the game."

It's merely the same as how Goblin Lackey works right now. A deck should be able to answer (or at least block) a 1/1 with their opening 7. In fact, Lackey needs to be answered in only one turn. With this vampire, you don't even need to answer it right away (i.e. you can wait a turn, get hit once, and then play the goyf from your hand to block it next turn.) Besides, if you hose the card too much then it's no fun. If this is for cube, then shouldn't it be as powerful as any other legacy/vintage staple?

Edit: Also, it definitely needs to be a Rogue.

[Nonex]

I guess Tarmogoyf should be included in the "answers for the next turn" department.

I'd try something in the lines of this:


Bloodline Cutter :b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, if that player has 10 or less life, he or she skips his or her next draw step.

1/1


Bloodline Cutter :b:

Creature - Vampire Shaman

Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may put a blood counter on ~. If you do, that player skips his or her next draw step.

At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent who has skipped his or her last draw step looks at the top X cards of his or her library, where X is the number of blood counters on ~, then puts one of them into his or her hand and the rest on the bottom of his or her library in any order.

1/1

[xTrainx]

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

Bloodline Cutter :b::b::1:
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 :b::b::1:
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 :1::b::b:
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 :b:
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 :b:
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 :4::b:

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 :2: 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 :b:

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 :u::r:, 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 :b:
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 :b:

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 :u::r: , 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 :1::b::b:
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 :1::b::b:

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 :b:
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 :b:
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 :b:

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.