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Born of Dust |
Sorcery (R)
Destroy all lands.  Until the end of the game, players may play land cards from their graveyards and from exile.
It took decades to rebuild Ictharion from the scorched earth and shattered fields of the first war.

Abusable land sweeper?  Or balanced land sweeper printable in Modern?

Terraform |
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of each other players' upkeep step, you and that player each may search your respective libraries for a basic land card, reveal it and put it onto the battlefield.  Each player who does shuffles his or her library.
The world, made.

Purposefully stronger in multiplayer.  Thoughts on the interesting templating?

Damnable Devils |
Creature -- Devil (C)
Haste
Ravage 1 (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice it.  If you do, destroy target land)
"Spoilers of field and flock, this was a time of the foulest monsters."
-- History of the Second War, Vol. II
3/3

Thunderfury of Kardia |
Creature -- Elemental (M)
Flying, ravage X (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice it.  If you do, destroy up to X target lands)
Thunderfury of Kardia enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters.
The storms born of the Kardian ranges carry away stone and boulder and devastation from those cragged peaks.
3/3

Can Ravage be used this way as a meaningful choice, or is it too destructive and unfun?

Hydrology |
Instant (U)
Return a land you control to your hand.
Until end of turn, whenever you tap a land for mana, add an additional to your mana pool.
The academists of Beryllos were often employed to warm the seas to rise and seed the clouds to fall.

Is Blue able to get workable, conditional mana ramp?  Or is this too far out of pie?

Dec 30, 2012 -- 12:54PM, bay_falconer wrote:

Not another "play from exile" card, please?

1. I didn't realize this was a problem.  2. Can you explain in more detail?

Play from exile prevents some degeneracy between this and a particular Leyline.

And, um, it's exactly as abusable as Crucible of Worlds . Meaning Azusa, Lost but Seeking and landfall abilities.

Is it balanced enough of a land sweeper that it allows the opponent to also continue to put the destroyed lands back?

Throw on Zuran Orb / Squandered Resources /you get my point.

Those aren't in Modern.  I don't care about Legacy/Vintage with this card.  There are more broken cards out there to use with those than this.

Terraform might just a bit broken at . Especially since nobody in eternal formats uses basics.

If nobody uses basics in eternal formats, would it even be worth it in eternal formats to play this and have to replace the nonbasics you would otherwise use with basics?

Damnable Devils is fine, I guess. You could just say "Sacrifice ~: Destroy target land, and it would be fine." No need to keyword it, but ravage could be an ability word.

I don't see how I could replace my wording with yours.  It can only be sacrificed when it enters the battlefield, not whenever you want.  Ravage sets up a trigger (that does the same thing each time), that can't just be ability worded.

X is dangerous, and that's a 3/3 flyer for three mana in red with no downside to speak of, that can become bigger and destroy lands. (To say nothing of Doubling Season and Corpsejack Menace .)

But is it too dangerous?  Without having to splash into other colors, it gets outstripped quickly by bigger red flyers who enter with P/T on or near their CMC and with additional upsides.  And again, it can only destroy lands when it enters the battlefield.  It's your choice, do you want to destroy lands, or have a creature?

I can mostly think of High Tide , but most blue decks are more active during opponents' turns. (Also, I don't see the "reasoning" or "words" involved.)

High Tide is what I'm building off of here.  I really don't understand the meaning behind your last sentence, what "reasoning" or "words" are you looking for?

Dec 30, 2012 -- 1:11PM, FirstTurnKill wrote:

Dec 30, 2012 -- 12:54PM, bay_falconer wrote:

Not another "play from exile" card, please?

1. I didn't realize this was a problem.  2. Can you explain in more detail?

Play from exile prevents some degeneracy between this and a particular Leyline.

Exile has multiple mechanical identities. If you said "players may play lands from their graveyards, or lands they own exiled this way, as if they were from their hands", you'd be fine. (That's following the tradition of Oubliette , Necropotence , Flicker , Parallax Wave , and more recently suspend and rebound) But the way you have it, you're

The other exile identities, by the way, are imprint (where the exiled card still has an effect on the game, but doesn't usually come back) and lost forever .

The thing is, you can't just have stuff coming back from exile, or it's Graveyard 2.0. That's why only four cards in the entire game of Magic-- Pull from Eternity , Riftsweeper , Runic Repetition , and Misthollow Griffin --do that.

Dec 30, 2012 -- 1:11PM, FirstTurnKill wrote:

And, um, it's exactly as abusable as Crucible of Worlds . Meaning Azusa, Lost but Seeking and landfall abilities.

Is it balanced enough of a land sweeper that it allows the opponent to also continue to put the destroyed lands back?

Funny thing about sweepers is, they're "build-around-me" cards. You wanna play Earthquake ? Stack your deck with flyers, protection from red, Cho-Manno, Revolutionary , or just Vigor . You don't see Shatterstorm in many artifact-heavy decks either. Wrath of God ? Meet Mishra's Workshop .

Most players wore a bunch of jewelry to Armageddon .

This, however, requires only Azusa or Oracle of Mul Daya to break.

So if you make more exemptions, you're just digging yourself deeper.

Dec 30, 2012 -- 1:11PM, FirstTurnKill wrote:

If nobody uses basics in eternal formats, would it even be worth it in eternal formats to play this and have to replace the nonbasics you would otherwise use with basics?

The same reason Phyrexian Vatmother is awesome in an infect-free meta but lousy in an infect-heavy meta. You don't have a downside if you build around it.

And while I can easily craft a Standard where basics are the norm (by simply not printing any duals other than the Core Set duals), I can't craft a Modern like that, much less a Legacy or Vintage, because...I'm inheriting Ravnica, Ninth Edition, Lorwyn, and Alara.

Dec 30, 2012 -- 1:11PM, FirstTurnKill wrote:

But is it too dangerous?  Without having to splash into other colors, it gets outstripped quickly by bigger red flyers who enter with P/T on or near their CMC and with additional upsides.  And again, it can only destroy lands when it enters the battlefield.  It's your choice, do you want to destroy lands, or have a creature?

Yeah, but you're supposed to have inferior choices in modal spells.

Dec 30, 2012 -- 1:11PM, FirstTurnKill wrote:

I can mostly think of High Tide , but most blue decks are more active during opponents' turns. (Also, I don't see the "reasoning" or "words" involved.)

High Tide is what I'm building off of here.  I really don't understand the meaning behind your last sentence, what "reasoning" or "words" are you looking for?

The name. Logos means "word" or (more figuratively) "reasoning".

A big reason it shouldn't be keyworded. Land destruction is very narrow in design space, and it's easy to go into " bad or broken " territory.