Demonic Tutor

Magic: the Gathering in the UK

So, as you probably know, Maro said when discussing Faithless Looting that if they printed it again now they would make the wording "slightly different".

There's a *lot* of discussion about what he meant here with the most common opinons being that he meant:

    1. Discard two cards then draw that many cards.

    2. Discard two cards then draw two cards.

There are also people that think the discard should be random (terrible) or that it should be a straight colorshift of blue looting, that it should trigger differently (when ~ attacks you may ... instead of on tap) or that it should be draw X cards, discard X cards at end of turn.

I really can't work out if (2) is broken or not on (say) a guy that taps to red-loot a single card.  It's the same as "Hellbent - T: Draw a card" which doesn't seem wildly extreme but does seem strong.

I also can't work out if reversing these makes looting bad, or too much of a thinker/unfun.  Looting in the U version is basically always a good idea whereas in a reversed version it can be fairly bad.

Some discussions:

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28912047/Red_Looting

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=392682

http://mtgcolorpie.com/2011/06/07/design-class-the-future-of-red-lo...

For ymtd5 I'd like to pair whatever red looting we like best with Madness and effects like Niv-Mizzet's ping upon draw (also ping upon discard?) on creatures or enchantments.

I also like combining it with N damage, an X damage spell, a creature's ETB ability (as a one off), when ~ attacks trigger and a hasty guy who taps to red-loot.

What do you think?

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So there look to be some Red looting cards in the new set, this one seems the best:

Semicircle of Fortune - 1R
Instant
Discard your hand, then draw 2 cards.


Name is unconfirmed, but seems a great topdeck, but probably not something you want 4 of, although totally ridiculous in Dredge.

That is pretty sweet, goes into pyromancer as well I think for modern

the speculation thread says it might be 3 card but I flat out do not believe that.  that would be ludicrous,

at 2 it is going to be super fun.

The only thing I see on that spoiler is that silly planeswalker who has the dreaded disard-at-random.

:(

picture.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=130170&a...

card is super sweet!



Thomas David Baker said:

The only thing I see on that spoiler is that silly planeswalker who has the dreaded disard-at-random.

:(

Spanish cards are sweet, need to get some inquisitions of kozilek for the obvious gag :D

~Mad Prophet

3r
Creature - Human Uncommon
Haste
{T}, Discard a card: Draw a card.
#146/244 2/2

Ew, discard as part of the cost?

Could be cheaper tbh, R2 for a 2/1 would be better

Other looting in R in Avacyn Restored:

"Draw a card, then discard a card at random." as the +1 on the RR planeswalker.

"Discard your hand, then draw 2 cards" as an instant for 1R.

"Each player discards his or her hand and draws seven cards." as a Sorcery for 3RR (Miracle: 1R).


So, same old same old really.  R did not get access to anything as good as Merfolk Looter.  I guess these effects are more in keeping with R's "personality" though.  The instant is possibly good but serves to keep R as one-dimensional as ever, no?

It seems great - encourages you to get hellbent, at which point it's an instant speed draw-2!

Right, so R access to looting becomes a very different thing to U looting where you get to see a bunch of cards and take the best (think: four creatures die with Murder of Crows in play) and instead becomes "when you have nothing in hand or only lands that you don't need, this is good, otherwise it is basically useless".

Which is fine and all but I was hoping we could make R good at something else as opposed to just a bit better at what it currently does (dump its hand and hope it wins, burn you out once its creatures have been obsoleted).

 

Final word on the matter from Mr. Rosewater in Making Magic today:

 

When Dark Ascension came out and I talked about Faithless Looting, I said that looting was being moved into red (in addition to being in blue) and that R&D was planning to give it its own identity, but we hadn't figured it out by Dark Ascension. Well, we did by Avacyn Restored. So now it's time to fill you in on how red looting is going to work. Two rules, really:

Rule #1) Red discards before drawing. Red is reckless, blue is methodical. One way to allow looting in both colors was to change how they did it. The fact that red is throwing things away not knowing what is coming felt very red, while blue wanting to know everything before making a decision felt more blue.

Rule #2) Red cannot get card advantage through looting. What this means is that sometimes we make looting cards where the player is up cards. These cards are half looting/half card-drawing. We decided that those don't make sense in red, so we've chosen to keep them out.

There are a bunch of caveats to this rule. First, we do count the card being used when casting it, so red could have a spell that discards one and draws two because overall it's not up cards. Second, we're wording some cards such that red can get card advantage if its hand is empty. (Dangerous Wager is one such card.)

But wait, you say, don't both of these rules work in blue's favor? Isn't blue getting the better version each time? Yes, but two things. One, we will be costing them accordingly, so red gets a little cost saving for its recklessness. Two, looting is actually very synergistic with red's style of play. Getting that last piece of direct damage can very often win the game for red, so getting looting will be good for red overall.

One last thing—Tibalt might be making many people think that red is going to be getting a lot of random discard. No, it will not. Red will get it infrequently when we need to use it (more on this when I get to Tibalt), but by default—which will be the vast majority of the time—red's discard will not be random.

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