Devour uses "as this comes into play" and that doesn't use the stack. It can't be responded to. It requires you to make a choise as does the shock lands and Lorwyn "reveal" lands, which in turn have an effect depending on the choice you made.. This is the same, is it not?

As a shock land comes into play you are given a choice. If you pay 2 life it comes into play untapped. If not, it comes into play tapped.
As a Mirage land comes into play you are given a choice. If you pay the cost it is returned to your hand and a token comes into play instead. If not, it simply comes into play.
Isn't this the same thing?

Honestly though, I think this ability was perfect on permanents that were spells and don't see any good reason it should ever be used on lands anyways...
What lands have ever had a keyword anyways? (Besides the Hideaways!)

I agree with guitarweeps. Is it necessary to give lands Mirage ability?

As for actually gauging the balance of the cards Miyago posted, regardless of how 'mirage' ultimately works, there seems to be an unerring silence.

Angelic Hymn compares favorably to Marble Chalice. I think the mirage cost on this might actually be a bit high. I'd be comfortable with this at with a mirage cost of .

The closest thing to Phantasmal Communion in real Magic is probably Boomerang "on a stick" with a Thran Turbine. That costs a total of and three cards, which might indicate that Phantasmal Communion is a touch overpowered, especially with mirage. As is, this should probably cost something more in the area of , and maybe change the mirage cost to . You'll notice as I balance these that I'm making the normal card 'splashable' with only one colored mana, but putting colors in the mirage cost so that they can only be 'bought back' in dedicated decks of their color.

As an aside, I now want a playset each of Thran Turbine and Isochron scepter.

Reaper's Audience seems to pale in comparison to Onyx Goblet, and the mirage ability, while still powerful, is prohibitively expensive. At , this is a pretty expensive way to make someone start to lose multiple life each turn. Necra Sanctuary seems to indicate to me that is suitable for this card, but the mirage cost is touchy. Because this card is so powerful in multiples, I'd keep the double-black in the mirage cost. Perhaps .

Burning Isle is quite reasonably priced, especially since it it limited to creatures. I think the mirage cost is a little bit 'nerfed,' though. I'm tempted to say that since there's double-red in the cost, a mirage cost of would be fine.

Dryad City follows suit. I think the mirage cost could be without getting too broken.

In all honesty, the mirage costs especially are the sort of thing that will likely need to be tweaked repeatedly in playtesting. These are just my opinions on what are likely some good baselines.

Good luck!

In other news, I think I could see why you'd want to put mirage on lands. If the lands are like Rupture Spire, they may well be worth investing mana in the mirage cost for repeatable payoffs later. I'm also struck by the idea of a cycle of lands that, for instance, allow you to get any number of Island tokens, but only if you have a Plains to pay the mirage cost. Behold!

Shimmering Sandbar
Land (C)
CARDNAME comes into play tapped.
: Add to your mana pool.
Mirage (As this comes into play, you may pay . If you do, return this to your hand and put a token into play that's a copy of it.)

I think you meant, in reference to your earlier comment,
Mirage As this comes into play, if it is not a token, you may pay . If you do, return this card to your hand and put a token into play that is a copy of it.

I certainly think this is a cleaner version of the thing, but it does trigger CIP effects on other cards twice which I think was the reason that it was originally done on the stack. There doesn't seem to be a perfect wording that does everything.

Well, except for "When you play this, you may pay <cost>. If you do, return this to your hand and put a token copy of it into play." That works for everything.

That works for lands, regardless of if its weird, whether its a static or triggered ability, or whether we think its a good design decision to put keywords on lands *ahem*Time Spiral Lands*ahem*.

You know we are just going to have to disagree on that one Pichoro. Also, cycling

I just don't see how it could not work, and I feel like arguements for why it doesn't work are convoluted and clouded with other unneceessary information.

You play the land by putting it into play. Nobody can respond to this, sure. This is analogous to playing any other permanent, though. The permanent enters play (from the stack or your hand in the case of lands), and the ability triggers. You get to either pay the cost or not. If you do, the land goes back to your hand and the ability to create a token copy goes on the stack. If the ability is never countered, a copy of the land is put into play.

I just don't see where there's room for confusion. It works on lands, plain as day. What's so hard to understand about that paragraph?

Mirage on lands could just be (As this comes into play, you may pay <cost>. If you do, put an Island land token into play tapped.)

Where the land subtype is just taken from the subtype of the mirage land.

But yeah, pich's version works just fine.

Balancing out my new set: rare lands, instants. [See Spoiler]
The im removing the Tribal part of these probaly, and must make them playable only when you the player controls an Elder Dragon Legend.

Joz - would have been helpful to use multiple sets of spoilers.
Beastlands - Um... these are very similar to Alara's 3 colour lands except with a unique drawback and a strange ability. I actually like that last ability, but I'm not sure this is the place for it. I think I'm going to have to say 'pass'.

Contested Ground - ouch. City of Brass is already deemed top tier. Basically, no land should add more than 1 mana to your mana pool without a really good drawback. In this case I would suggest bouncing two lands back to your hand (and coming into play tapped).

Flight of Dragons - ick. On balance: 4 mana nets you 2 3/3 dragons. That's pretty nails even without the abilities. My real problem with it is that it's too confusing. You could make an amazing XWUBRG card with it, or even just an XRR card.

Charms - White one is pretty bad (you shouldn't have extra 'or's on a charm). Should be at least 5, and either prevent or gain. Red seems overpowered, but maybe not by much. Maybe it +1/+0. Black: for a start it should be CARDNAME deals... Then life gain should equal damage dealt. 2 seems pretty reasonable. Blue and green - fine.

hee hee, sorry bout the lands havent realy looked into alara that much, so Im not sure whats in it.

Changed Contested Ground so that it doesnt untap normaly, and you must pay 2 mana to untap it, and I removed the damage dealing.
For the Legend instants, changed white to prevent 5, red to +1/+0 and dbls. Fixed wording on black as well, and made it gain 2 life.

Except he's not gonna get around that if he wants to put it on lands, as there's no zone a land goes to while its waiting to enter play and you can't respond to the player's decisison to play it.

He's either going to trigger CiP effects on just lands, or he's going to trigger it on all of them.

Look, this debate has gone on long enough. Its time to leave it to miyago. I personally only reopened the discussion to make the point that the ability DOES work on lands; contrary to some mistakes made in earlier stages of the discussion.

@Joz

The tri-lands are balanced according to Alara. The last ability is interesting. I do not think the limitation on how many you can have in a deck is neccessary. It isn't that powerful of a card and it just makes it a little more confusing. Although, I may be confused and this may be so that you can play MORE due to EDL. If that is the case, then ignore that sentence.

Contested Ground - I think your fix is good.

Flight of Dragons - This is a little crazy. You have to look at what you get for each possible combination of mana.
= 2x 3/3 flyers (Plus abilities)
= 3x 4/4 flyers (Plus abilities)
= 4x 5/5 flyers (Plus abilities)

Anything more than that should net you bombs anyways.
All of these possibilities are WAY over the curve, even for Mythic. Generally you shouldn't give more power level than the mana cost unless there is a drawback. This has no drawback, is very versatile due to the ability to use any color mana (or colorless!), and a LOT of bonus abilities. I would simplify it and do less extra abilities. Also, I think that you should keep one variable static, i.e. Put X 2/2 tokens into play or put 2 X/X tokens into play. Also, the X+1/X+1 is too much with everything else (for confusion and power level).
Also, just so you know, this is a colorless spell. A spell only has a color if it has a colored symbol in the mana cost or has a phrase stating the card's color. Kobolds of Kher Keep Ghostfire

*...oh shit.*

I think I put in + innstead of Minus, and it was supposed to be "Put X+1, X-1/X-1 tokens." for original balance, Which shoudlve =out into:

Spend 2= 2 1/1's

Spend 4= 3 2/2s

Spend 8 = 5x 3/3's

but I think ill scrap the idea and start over (late night working doesnt work to well.)

How about XX
Put X-1 X/X tokens into play?

spending 4(2) (minimum required to get anything) would get 1 2/2 token
spending 6(3) would get 2 3/3 tokens
spending 8(4) would get 3 4/4 tokens
spending 20(10) would get 9 10/10 tokens ...eh

its balanced from 4 to possibly 8... but after that >_<
ill fore sure scrap the color ability part...

If I change it to guitarweeps's suggestion of X 2/2 or 2 x/x ...
hmm...

spending 2(1) would get either a 2/2 flyer or 2 1/1 flyers....
seems a bit overpowered compared to dragon fodder.
spending 6 (a common ammount) would get a 3 2/2 or a 2 3/3s
which seems more balanced. thanks guitarweeps. Ill take that suggestion.
Thanks everyone else for the help. Considering removing 2-limit on lands...maybe a bit more tweaking.

Sorry that I'm a bit late on this,
but somebody has already come up with a Mirage effect? Because it is (kinda) crucial in my set. What does this Mirage do?

Mirage (Cost) {As this card comes into play you may pay {cost}, if you do return this card to your hand, and put a copy of it into play.}
I also suggest making Mirage a sorcery ability, and make the Mirage cost itself expensive.

Take for example:

Sigil of the Emtpy Throne + Conviction

It has a the ability to create a 4/4 Flying angel for 3 mana (2 to play conviction, 1 to return it to your hand.) and Sigil only costs 5.

Mirage would have to be considerably less powerfull or run the risk of overbalancing the game.

The land you listed earlier is broken, the cost should not be available for several turns at least.

@ Joz - Mirage would follow the same balancing rules of buyback. How could it be a sorcery? It's an ability attached to a permanent that can only be used when that permanent is coming into play.

@Progenitus 2 - I think that the general concensus of these forums are that if you have a keyword and you later find out that someone else has the same keyword (with different effect) that there is no problem. You just can't "steal" there keyword and effect. Although, I am a big fan of the Thesarus. For instance: Hallucination, Illusory, Delusion would all work if you don't want the same word.

5 creatures to balance: Im thinking Mindstab and Feral are what the rest need to balance around.

Feral Wurm - R
Creature - Wurm (Dragon?)
Echo - 1R
Haste
2/1

Mirage Wurm - U
Creature - Wurm (Dragon?)
Flying, shroud
1/1

Mindstab Wurm - B
Creature - Wurm (Dragon?)
Flying
Whenever an opponent discards a card (or should it be creature card?) put a +1/+1 counter on Mindstab Wurm.
1/1

Gladw Wurm - G
Creature - Wurm (Dragon?)
GGG: Glade Wurm gains landwalk of your choice until end of turn. You may use this ability only before attackers are declared and only once each turn.
1/1

Benevolent Wurm - W
Creature - Wurm (Dragon?)
Flying, defender
W: White Wurm gets +0/+1 until end of turn. You may spend no more then WWWW in this way each turn. If WWWW is spent, Benevolent Wurm gets +1/+0.
0/2

This is my first card, so I just need feedback if I'm doing everything right.

Are you using the latest version of MSE? I don't understand why you don't have the fonts...
Other than that, looks fine except for a few wording issues. Creatures can't be attached to anything, and the card needs an artifact background. You can do what you want though by using Imprint. So it would look like this:

Mechanized Remains
Artifact Creature - Zombie

Kicker
Imprint - When ~ comes into play, you may remove a creature card in your graveyard from the game.
If the kicker cost was paid, ~ gains haste until end of turn.
~'s power and toughness are each equal to the total power and toughness of all imprinted creature cards plus one.
, Put an imprinted card into its owner's graveyard: Regenerate ~.

*+1/*+1

I had to modify how the p/t thing worked because if you send the card to the graveyard to prevent Remains from being destroyed, it's still a 0/0 and dies anyway.

Okay, thanks. I do have it, but for some reason, italics don't work and the font is weird. Is it vista's fault? I got it from the download page...

I don't know, but it might be. I'd try reinstalling it and see what happens. If not, Pichoro probably knows.

Re-installing won't help. Do you have admin access on your machine? What's happened is that the fonts were never installed to your computer.

They are Matrix, MPlantin, Mplantin-Italic, and ModMatrix. The MPlantins can be found for free online, but Matrix is illegal to distribute, so you're unlikely to find it. On top of that, ModMatrix is a font that was done specifically for MSE, and is not distributed online. Note that it isn't legal to distribute either.

My advice: if you don't have admin access, stop installing on computers you're not an admin on. Find one where you are, install there, and use MSE there. If you are an admin, I have no idea what's happening.

Ah, okay, I was accidentally on Guest because [longstory].

EDL #2
Arcades Sabboth - 2GGWWUU
Flying, protection from instants.
GGUU: Arcades Sabboth gains shroud until end of turn.
2WU: Arcades Sabboth gets +3/+5 and gains defender and lifelink until end of turn.
2GW: Arcades Sabboth gets +5/+3 and gains trample and first strike until end of turn.
8/8

balanced? I think for 8 mana and get +8/+8 total (or choose between offense and deffense for 4.) it should be resonably balanced as he also has protection from instants (no luck with Terror here buddy, gota pull out a big fireball if u want him dead.)

@Joz:
The cycle:
They doesn't looked like a cycle, because there's nothing that tied them except their creature types (and their CMCs), and wurms aren't that little, except some shenanigans on the past. I think you should using another creature type.

-Red: Balanced, even better than its Urza's Saga goblin cousin. (I forgot the name.)
-Blue: Too good. I suggest to remove flying because blue doesn't do a 1/1 flier for without drawback again. (I don't count shroud as a drawback.)
-Black: Sicker than the last one, I suggest to remove flying and change the cost into and become uncommon or rare.
-Green: Personally, I don't like landwalk ability. And why I have to play this ability before attack? I don't get it. If you think it will unblocked after a guy block this and you play the ability, it stills blocked.
-White: Worse than Honor Guard .

Arcades Sabboth - Ugh, shroud and pro-instants are redundant. And defender is useless. He stills attacking even you activate this on combat. And I think you should make the 'walker version of this. (But poor, only Bolas that stills a 'walker, and the others are die.) And he can't be pointed by anything because he has shroud. (Even the big Fireball , except he doesn't have mana.)

While I'm here, I might as well post these. They don't seem balanced enough.

Demonic Clock is WAY to powerfull.

To balance it, it needs to have a very good (bad) drawback, such as sacrificing a creature, or two.) I think the best way to balance it out would be to make it:
2B, T: Sacrifice a creature you own with power 2 or greater. Put a -1/-1 counter on target creature.

Skeleton Philosopher is an intresting card, should be a 0/3 unccommon.

Ghast should cost BB instead and be an unccomon.

Erie Glow is a strange card, not sure waht to think of it, but the corret wording is "return it to its owners hand"

I wanted to make a Murmuring Bosk-like cycle, but without the tribal theme.

An example:

Graveyard of War
Land - Swamp (U)
(: Add to your mana pool.)
As ~ comes into play, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, ~ comes into play tapped.
: Add or to your mana pool. ~ deals 1 damage to you.

What do you think? Is this balanced?

Its either an overpowered uncommon or a underpowered rare.

Its mixing one of the old dual lands (from tempest? mirage?) with a new dual land...

meh.

I think it's balanced. I had taken a different approach to my Bosk-style lands, but what I wanted to point out is a question of how you want the lands to work. Murmoring Bosk and Graveyard of War both tap for one color and pain you for one of an enemy pair that flanks the first color when they appear on multicolor cards. (See Overgrown Estate and Fervent Charge.) My variant tapped for one mana of a color and pained you for one of an allied pair that were each enemies of the first color.

In easier-to-see terms, the Bosk is a land that taps for and .
Blackburn Meadow, below, is a land that taps for and

Anyway, the short answer was yes, it's balanced. Wanderwine Hub compares favorably to Hallowed Fountain, after all.

EDIT: Oh, and this is all assumed to be at rare. As Joz said, it's overpowered for an uncommon. I disagree, however, with the idea that it's underpowered as a rare.

Okay, thanks for the feedback

Ulxiz, your card seems very balanced but I think it should be a rare, since you can still tap it the turn it comes out for any of the three.

Equilibrium, Skeletal Philosopher seems black only in that it's a skeleton. Really the ability should be green, since green dislikes hasty decisions above all the others. Petrified Wood-Kin has outright protection from them. The Green Glow seems a lot more blue.

Thanks
A few more:

for Reanimate Fivefold, change the name to Reanimate Horde (or something) Fivefold is kinda stupid sounding.

Also, Seeking Spider is WACK overpowered. They are NEVER EVER going to remake Demonic Tutor, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. And I agree, they should not.

Seeking spider should cost 1BB, and some life too.

Seeking Spider only pulls artifacts, Off color for black, but not overpowered.

I actually love the word fivefold (and sevenfold etc.), it has a lovely archaic ring to it.

Seeking Spider - it is out of colour a little. Moreover, 2C is the current cost for "find specific card type" and because it's a creature as well (creature CIP abilities are much more abusable than sorceries), the cost needs to be stronger too. 1BB might be enough, but you also might need to stretch to Diablolic Tutor cost of 2BB.

This is more of a wording than a balancing issue, but Seeking Spider needs to have 'reveal it' before you put it into your hand...

Since it's relevant for issues of future balancing, Wizards just confirmed that Demonic Tutor will be in Duel Decks: Divine vs. Demonic. With snazzy new art, too.

Wow, that's insane since it's pretty widely accepted that card is broken.

AFAIK, those decks don't change the legality of a card. Didn't they put lightning bolt or the jellyfish in the Jace/Chandra deck?

I love Duel Decks, even I only have the Goblins vs Elves one (or the Elves vs Goblins one?) I'm just trying to get the Jace vs Chandra, and then there's Divine vs Demonic. I'll get those as possible since I love to get some favorite cards. (I don't care about their 2ndary price.)

In the case of Jace v. Chandra, the defendant, Chandra Nalaar was cleared of all charges when it was revealed that the prosecution, spearheaded by a Mister J. Beleren, had reprinted cards that are restricted in Vintage and banned in Legacy. Furthermore, it was revealed that Mister Beleren had in fact been responsible for the reprinting of a card that was thought never to be seen again.

The precedent set by this landmark case seems to be that boxed set printings do not affect the legality of a given card. Furthermore, in this Judge's opinion, boxed set printings do not indicate a change in Wizard's opinion of a card's power level. These printings merely demonstrate Wizard's appreciation for the fact that these cards are fun, powerful, and an important part of the history of Magic as a game.

Advanced Combat Spartan 7R
Creature-Human Rare
Haste
Flying
Rapid Fire (Whenever this creature becomes blocked, this creature gains double strike until end of turn.)
7/4

Seems just a bit underpriced. I'd probably add an extra R. Also, I'd probably add a creature class.

And a card - I posted this in the Creature type game, but is it balanced?

Soulwrecker
Creature - Demon
Flying
When Soulwrecker comes into play, if you didn't play it from your hand, you lose half your life, rounded up.
Unearth
9/6

Well i have a full halo deck and all humans are just "humans" because they use alot of abilities based on that. thank you for that though.

Are we saying that ACS is more powerful than Akroma? I think this is fine (if it was legendary you could make it 7 mana), but probably should have a heavier colour requirement. I like Rapid Fire.

On the subject of class: not having a class makes cards too generic. It may not be important to the set or to you, but it makes the set richer. Normally, Wizards avoids making individual humans this strong, but it looks like it's the nature of your set.

Soul Wrecker - I like it. Seems fine from here.

Well, it is a Spartan. Though I had pegged them as somewhat around 4/3. Human Warrior is a given.

Spartan yes but he's the best one master chief hehe. anyways if anyone would like to help me with either of my 3 decks under construction, Hero Deck, New Halo Deck, and a Fantasy Artifact creature/Machine Deck please visit my thread in card showcase New Deck Need Help. i would appreciate it. and thanks for comments guys ill definately take them all into consideration.