Sunbird's Invocation

Tilwin90
Tilwin90 Posts: 662 Critical Contributor
So after looking at the original magic card and its transposition to MTGPQ, it didn't take me long to figure out just how bad the MTGPQ version is. Again, not necessarily because it does something wrong, but because it doesn't do something original or interesting, and for the return of investment to start showing up, you need to invest quite a bit...
- It costs 20 mana just to put it onto the board.
- It triggers off another expensive spell that magically needs to cst 15 or more (making the total initial investment of minimum 35 mana).
- It tries to balance things by not only grabbing a 10 mana spell or less (sure, you get 10 mana out of the initial 20... way to go) + it loses a shield... Thanks for overdoing it!

And then it hit me where Swarm Intelligence gets bonkers (let's ignore Omniscience...): It allowed you to transform a 3 mana spell into a 23 mana spell. Plus because it only acts on spells, it's very predictable since it allows you to build your deck in a specific way. Now of course some like that aspect, and I can't disagree blue is much more calculated, this is not in red's color pie.

So I've been thinking on how Sunbird's Invocation could become more useful while keeping the red unpredictable factor.
First the suggested new description:
"Whenever you cast a card, fetch the next card in your library with mana cost less than X, where X is the mana cost of the cast card. Its cost is reduced to 0."

To explain the adjustments:
- By triggering it off ANYTHING, it bypasses the predictability factor - all libraries need to have 10 distinct cards, so it will grab only that next available distinct card. Sure, you can control mana costs, but you never know what's next in your library (most of the times).
- It never gives back more than was invested. You play a 3 mana card, you'd best have a 2 or 1 mana card in your deck... No more blue desert cascading into a Deploy the Gatewatch.
- Since the new card is free (hence it gets a cost of 0), casting it the same turn won't re-trigger Invocation, so no chance for shameless loops. This is a huge difference when compared with Swarm Intelligence where you could end up firing 4 spells in the same turn. Or Omniscience for the same matter...

I would not reduce shields since you can't go infinite and because of the random factor. This would bring it closer to the essence of the paper magic card and not make it some fringe useful rare that people will try to use it for a bit before keeping it in their trash bins of cards they will never play.

What does everyone think? Is this idea bonkers and I'm missing something, or it could actually make the card playable without being completely broken?  o:)

Comments

  • rafalele
    rafalele Posts: 876 Critical Contributor
    You are rigth, in this set I have found that some cards are not very interesting, specially Mythics and Rares. 

    Very expensive and with sinergy with mechanics that are not easy playable.