So Skulk has failed as MtG's next evergreen keyword

He's saying the same thing I was saying when skulk was revealed. Good thing they realized the error.

>What keyword fits black and blue then?
Something like an inverse 'prowess'?
"When one or more cards are put in an opponent's graveyard, this creature get +1/+1 until EOT"

>prowess doesn't combo with skulk
Nigger cast your spells after blocks. No wonder they accidentally break so many cards, they dont think of any simple interactions.

He literally says it combos with it.

Raze
When this creature becomes blocked, target opponent discards a card.

skulk is fun but it wouldn't work outside of innistrad.

I really don't want to see any repeatable discard effects in evergreen. That sounds unfun as fuck.

>"When one or more cards are put in an opponent's graveyard, this creature get +1/+1 until EOT"
I like this. Call it "Morbid" maybe. But I'm not sure it would feel right on a blue creature.

Morbid is already a keyword

Ability Word, technically. They still won't reuse it for a keyword, though.

Beguile X
Spells that target creatures blocking or blocked by ~ cost X less to cast

Plays well with instants for blue and spell-based, targetted removal for black

>Flying
makes blocking even harder
>Prowess
combo
>Flash
combo
>Hexproof
limited synergy
>Deathtouch
no combo
>Lifelink
no combo
>Menace
combo
>Haste
no combo

Think I've cracked it

"Grim" then?

I like it, but it doesn't feel black to me.

Also worth noting that your wording would apply to spells cast by your opponent as well.

Or anyone else in a multiplayer game

Blue/Black sounds like either mill-related or graveyard based. Also stealing things from library. Overall slimy manipulation. Ideas:

>You may cast instant and sorcery cards from your graveyard if they're targeting [CARDNAME]
But kinda doesn't feel black at all.

>Whenever [CARDNAME] deals combat damage to opponent, exile/mill top card of his/her library
But that's already ingest

>Creatures blocked by [CARDNAME] get -X/-0 untill EOT
Not very black, though

>Whenever a card is put into opponent's graveyard, target creature gets +X/-X or -X/+X
Former is very dangerous, latter is WU and not UB

The actual question is, do we really need an evergreen for UB?

How is it not Cipher? I know it was thrown away but we're talking about an on-hit repeated sorcery here.

Cipher doesn't seem to fit black all that well though. Also they probably think it's too complicated for an evergreen keyword.

Maybe make it a debuff? Kinda like flanking but proportional to the number of opponent's cards that entered the graveyard.

"Whenever a creature blocks this creature, the blocking creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. X is equal to the number of opponent's cards that entered the grave this turn."

...Too wordy.

It's got terribly low amounts of design space - there's only so many things that can go on the cipher spell that you want not just once when cast regularly, but again after the creature connects.

"Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card unless that player discards a card."

For me UB feels like mill, but that's too narrow and not competitive.

Typically blue/black hybrid means some type of evasion plus mill/ingest/etc.

Since Magic is supposed to be about strategy, why not a Fateseal type effect? This could add interest strategy to a game primarily degenerating into creature combat, especially with shuffle effects.

Another option is "Mega Skulk" - ~ can't be blocked by creatures with LESSER power.

Looking at blue/black creatures through the years, almost all have had some type of evasion and/or library/hand interaction. I want to see UB have a more interesting evergreen keyword. Maybe something with looting or pain draw. I would rather the UB keyword mechanic provide a benefit for the player using the mechanic rather than provide a hinderance to the opponent conceptually.

You may now proceed to call my ideas crap.

>not competitive.

Anything can compete if you give it the right amount of umpf. Mill not competing is a choice.

Mill literally can't win against a lot of tier 1 decks in Modern and Legacy, no matter how much "umpf" (whatever the fuck that means) you give it. Why play a deck that can't beat the best decks in the format?

powerlevel, you fuckstick.

>Why play a deck that can't beat the best decks in the format?

this is a fact about the cards which actually exist, not the mechanic.

>Blue and Black keywords
>Haste

Well, here's the U/B mechanics I've come up with over the years.

>[name] Plunder
>When this creature deals damage to a player, reveal the top cards of his or her library until you reveal a [name] card. You may cast that card for its converted mana cost. Put the remaining cards on the bottom of that player’s library in any order.

[name] could theoretically be anything, but mostly it's meant to be Artifacts since it was intended for a pirate set. It could even be Land, though that would require somewhat different wording (which is not unprecedented, RE: Haunt): "You may put that land onto the battlefield under your control."

Withdraw C
>You may pay this card's withdraw cost to shuffle it into your library from the battlefield and draw a card.

This is much more Blue than Black, but I like it.

Insanity
>When you draw this card, you may reveal it and exile it. As long as this card is exiled, you may play it as though it were in your hand.

This is much more Black than Blue, but I like it even more.

Why not something like inverted Rampage? Let's call it "Toxic" for now.

"Toxic 1" would mean, "each creature blocking this one gets -1/-1 until end of turn." This may encroach on Flanking from a flavor perspective.

You could also have inverted prowess, let's call it "Domination"

This would mean "whenever you cast a non creature spell, ~ deals 1 damage to target player or each creature blocking ~ gets -1/-1 until end of turn"

The issue with Domination is that it's MUCH better at wiping the board of the enemies dudes than Prowess is.

Boys, keep in mind that an evergreen ability needs to be favorable on all kinds of creatures, from the 1/1 to the 9/9. Yes, trample is an exception.

>Beguile X
Way too situational. Keep in minds that a lot of good blue/black instants/sorcs have no generic mana cost.

Haste shows up in Black from time to time.

Maybe a mini-Cascade effect?
Hex X: Whenever ~ deals combat damage, you may move one sorcery or instant card from your graveyard to your hand, then you may cast a sorcery or instant with CMC less than or equal to X from your hand without paying its mana cost.

Whoops, incomplete edit.
Mini-Cascade would be really blue, the one I posted was more towards the black end.

MaRo thinks everything is a mistake and everything is wrong.
Except Delver of Secrets and Jace the Mind Sculptor of course, those were hones oversights on power level.

Toxic is literally flanking but better

True, but it's not primarily Black keyword, and certainly not Blue keyword.
For Black, Regenerate would be more fitting.

regenerate is dead and no longer a keyword.

Wait what? Since when? Why?

When did Haste become a U or B keyword?

I think Ninjutsu with serial numbers filed off would be great, it's just too complex for evergreen. Everything I can think is too wordy as well, or an abillity word.

>Strategize - whenever you draw a card, you may reveal it. If it's X, effect happens
Too strong I think, and limiting it to the first draw each turn makes it more blue/red. Maybe the reverse works better: whenever you discard something happens based on the type. Or an opponent discards a card on ETB, then there's an effect depending on card type.

>Intrigue - Whenever X happens, put an Intrigue counter on ~. Then some effect on the permanent relating to the number of counters
We won't get another type of counter and fuck putting more +1/+1 counters on things.

>Decay - When this dies, each opponent looses one life
That's not blue.

>Sabotage - When this attacks, tap target creature
That's blue/white

And so on. Intrigue and dirty tricks are hard to boil down to simple actions you can stick on creatures. Maybe exile cards from graveyard on attack and then some graveyard matters. Or some form of mana denial to fuck with green.

Man, I just want Cipher back, it was so fun. It interacts with the other common UB theme of evasive creatures.

see

Ah, missed that. Thanks.

>Sap
>When this creature is blocked, blocking creature gets -x/-x until end of turn

Blue finds crafty ways to gain the advantage over threats, Black terrifies them into submission or skulks in the shadows until they can find a weak point.

>Or some form of mana denial to fuck with green.

>Mana Thief - When this card is declared as an attacker or blocker tap one land your opponent controls.

>Since Magic is supposed to be about strategy, why not a Fateseal type effect?

never again

Because it's obtuse crap.

It's black.

Something that interacts with the hand, library, and/or graveyard.

When ~ deals combat damage to a player look at the top X cards of library (alternatively reveals x cards from hand) choose one, cards with that name can't be played until the beginning of your next turn.

I feel like evergreen abilities need to be things that primarily effect the combat step. Drawing cards or discarding cards are way too powerful compared to lifelink or vigilance.

The Lure effect?

like:
Lure - When this creature attacks, your opponent must block it if able.
?

That's kind of a shame, I honestly really liked Skulk and I think it would have worked fine as a keyword. As OP points out, it combos really well with lifelink and prowess. I mean, c'mon, BU is a color combination that seems pretty evasive, why not give it another? Menace/Skulk is a cool interaction, and Flying/Skulk would make already nigh-unblockable creatures really hard to deal with without having to resort to expensive as hell and annoyingly wordy "can't be blocked" shtick.

My idea was someth along the lines of a mechanic that lets you look at a player's hand or top card of their deck, let you cast it if you pay the CMC, otherwise to put the card at the bottom of their library.

If put on a creature, it could be something like, "whenever [creature] deals combat damage to a player, look at the top X cards of that player's library. you may cast one of those cards for CMC, otherwise put them on the bottom in any order," with X being however WotC wants to balance the creature.

I'm relatively confident that that would be busted as all hell in practice.
>swing with your 1/1 flyer with a lot of mana up
>cast their last removal spell on their last creature
>beat them to death with your guy over the course of 19 grueling turns because you can decide what they draw, we lantern control now
Sorry, man, I don't see it

So...what is the idea, exactly? Does every color need a keyword, and every color combination a keyword? We need 15 evergreen keywords? That's kind of a tall order...

I think it's just every color combination. And it's pretty well on its way as it stands.
W/G: Vigilance
G/R: Trample, haste
R/B: Haste, menace
B/U: ???
U/W: Flying
W/B: Lifelink
B/G: Deathtouch
G/U: Flash, hexproof
U/R: Prowess
R/W: First strike (double strike)

I almost never see a green Haste card, and I've always seen Haste as simply being a consequence of having Red in the card rather than a property of combining the colors, particularly since Red gets so much haste anyway.

When this creature dies or deals combat damage to a player (whichever variation you feel gels better) you may cast a sorcery/instant card from your graveyard as though it was an instant, exile that spell at eot.

Yeah, it's true haste is most tenuously in its secondary colors, but it still exists design-wise. Anyway, now green shares trample with red and black shares menace so the quota is filled for them regardless.

Black gets haste as well, though usually on weird uncommons and the occasional common (and for some reason basically never at rare unless it has a billion other keywords anyways)
Green gets it rarely and when it does it's basically 'development is pushing this card for constructed'

To be honest, the best Black/Blue non-evasion combat keyword would be Ninjutsu. Unfortunately they screwed the pooch on that one by calling it Ninjutsu, which necessarily restricts it to Japanese-flavored sets - they made the same mistake with Bushido.

It might be time to bite the bullet and simply reprint Ninjutsu but with a new name. It's hardly unprecedented: that's all Horsemanship really is, for example.

I have no idea what to call this.

Black/blue flavor wise is sneaky and mean.
So how about "spy- when Name deals combat damage defending player reveals their hand and lose 1 life"

Finesse (If this creature is attacking, it cannot be dealt more combat damage than it deals, and may assign combat damage at an amount lower than its power)

I'm sure Wizards can word this better, but basically it gives Blue/Black the ability to protect its creatures from unenviable combat.

Put it on a 2/3 and it can't die from being blocked, put it on a 2/2 and if its blocked by a 2/X, it can get out of the situation by just dealing less damage. I would let it do it during all forms of combat, but then that would be silly and broken. Plus, Wizards wants to encourage attacking in all colors so whatevs.

Broken.

Not to rain on your parade... But that's stupid, and you're stupid. Stop being stupid.

Well it couldn't be put on something with evasion without bumping up the rarity of it. But a generic 1/3 for 3 CMC with this, where X = 1, I'd put that at a strong common or uncommon rarity.

There is also the fact that the UB color combination means the spell picked can only be cast from those colors unless you splash for more colors. Otherwise it's just a fateseal-like effect, which we know is strong but not broken because it's not guaranteed what you next draw is going to be shit.

From the resident custom card thread a while back:

Patience
When ~ attacks, it gets +1/+1 if it didn't attack last turn.

It's simple, it affects combat, and it fits flavorfully in both colors (blue is methodical and black is opportunistic).

Amusingly, it pairs well with haste in black, since a creature that just showed up can't have attacked last turn.

I don't care too much about evergreen abilities, but it'd be real nice if they could make some Transmute cards again. What's not to love about great cards that can be used to tutor for even greater cards?

But HOW is it stupid?

Its a combat-centric keyword that isn't evasion and affects creatures with different stats differently.

Its an effect that is extremely powerful and potent in theory (It gives its owner almost complete control on how combat is dictated), but has no ability to force its opponent into a situation for it to be used, limiting its power level. Thus, you can print it on lower mana cost creatures where it can be pseudo-evasion against low toughness (Because it can be like deathtouch if they block) and a bluff tactic against high toughness creatures (Threaten a combat trick, like a blue polymorph or a black "-X/-X" spell). It prevents you from ever losing the creature from attacking, which isn't overpowered since you can already prevent that by not attacking.

But further, it has a high, high amount of design space across rarities. You can print any of the old basic "When this creature deals combat damage to a player, ~", forcing the opponent to choose to block, but also do that but with a higher complexity twist like "If this creature deals X combat damage to a player, ~. If this creature deals Y combat damage to a player, ~~" which gives you different benefits depending on how much you damage you choose to deal. And, though its not common, Blue does have access to "Target creature blocks this turn if able", there's obviously some synergy you can combine on a higher rarity card. Black, meanwhile, has lifelink, and so the ability can combo with Lifelink by allowing a creature to swing in and gain X-1 amount of life freely, where X is there toughness.

All the while, the ability does nothing by itself to deal damage above the creature's efficiency, a crucial element to any blue keyword.

>All the while, the ability does nothing by itself to deal damage above the creature's efficiency, a crucial element to any blue keyword.
Other than prowess, apparently.

Prowess requires other spells at least.

Regenerate shows up in almost every set. Sure, it usually only has 2~5 cards with it, or so, but it's evergreen for sure. OGW had regen, even. SOI didn't, but seeing as FRF didn't either and the four sets after it did, that means nothing.

So Flanking X?

>Better cards need to be at a higher rarity

Memory issues I think.

Stifle: Creatures that block this card lose any special abilities until the end of combat.

Blue because fuck your fun (and something something ovinize), black because it combos with -X/-X and spot removal.

It's an activated ability and of relatively high complexity.

The UB keyword needs to be something that isn't activated and isn't variable between cards. No costs, no different effects, it needs to be straight-forward and precise and do the same thing on each card.

muh limited
u
h
limited

ignoring the fact that limited is at its best when the commons are versatile and powerful

Blue is about messing with cards, and Black is about sacrificing things for a cause.

What about an effect that lets you discard cards from your hand to fuel it? Like "discard a card to increase this card's Power" or "discard a card and this creature can fly for a turn".

That's green.

It has as many memory issues as summoning sickness.

Haunted: When this card is discarded, choose 1 - Target player draws a card. Target player discards a card.

>There is also the fact that the UB color combination means the spell picked can only be cast from those colors unless you splash for more colors.
No, you said "If they pay the CMC." CMC doesn't take color into consideration, that's the whole point of the acronym in the first place. Under the wording you posted yourself it is entirely possible to cast an opponent's Path to Exile off the top of their library for 1.

These mechanics are supposed to be relevant or printable at all rarities and CMCs. This mechanic is too powerful for that.

Just have the creature remove itself from combat if blocked or becomes blocked.

that's a white ability, and I'm not really sure how actually relevant that would be in the first place

Remind me again, why isn't it Looting?
"When X deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card."

It's very strong, but goes well on all kinds of creatures and combos well with everything. It's excluded simply because WotC has a hate-boner for everything except mid-range agro decks.

Has Looting ever appeared on a monoblack card? This is supposed to be a mechanic that fits just as well on a blue card as it would a black one, and looting has so far been almost exclusively blue's domain

nothing evergreen would involve discarding. A lot of people itt is overthinking it.

Creeping Dread: For each creature that is in your graveyard with this ability, you may cast a spell from your graveyard for its cmc equal to the number of creatures in your graveyard with creeping dread. Exile that spell and those creatures at eot.

I think flashback should have been BU only. It really fits the theme of the color combo.