Breathing Life Into The Cards

So, life-gains and resurrection stuffs are pretty dang weak. A deck using life-gain would almost always be better to use a FMV or just another monster. Sure, there's a little possibility for a turn-around when your opponent only attacks with just enough attack to kill you, and then you use the spell... but that doesn't usually happen, and you usually don't have monsters to attack THEM with afterwards.

Likewise, the spells that put cards back into your hand are of nil use. Rebuild- Doctor Bakuga, for TWO gray more, puts, say, M-Sword on the field, saving you TEN dark. Now, he's not particurarly overpowered, so where's the use in Rebuild? Same with Ressurection (Life puts them into play at half their mana cost, AND can do it just before your turn so they're basically speed summon). Lucky Save? You just let yourself get hit, and now you have to re-play the monster again.

So they need balanced, and bad.

Gift of Life: Raise life gain to 65. This'll at least protect against a winged golem hit with a little net gain, whereas for 2 you could dizzy it, which has more utility in the first place. (For instance, dizzying a wall so they can't block your ginourmous Argent.)

Space Burrito: Either reduce cost to 222, or raise life gain, to, say, 100. See statement above...except that you could DESTROY a monster for less mana than this costs.

Apple: Few people want to use an effect slot for anything but mana. The only exceptions are powerful effects such as Swimsuit, N/G, or Diplomacy. Fewer people use this than Gift of Life, because it essentially costs 2 more mana (since you're missing a gen), takes a turn to use, AND is vulnerable to effect/entity D. You don't even get the surprise value that Gift of Life gives you. I suggest a 3:lmana; cost.

Rebuild, Lucky Save, and Ressurection: I suggest making it so these three spells give you 1/3 of the mana of the card you just returned back. This'll still probably leave Rebuild inferior to Bakuga, but it'll still have it's uses. Same with Ressurection (well, actually, Life would STILL own it), and Lucky Save (FMV? So much better.)

Quote: Rebuild, Lucky Save, and Ressurection: I suggest making it so these three spells give you 1/3 of the mana of the card you just returned back. This'll still probably leave Rebuild inferior to Bakuga, but it'll still have it's uses. Same with Ressurection (well, actually, Life would STILL own it), and Lucky Save (FMV? So much better.)

I'd point out now that Ressurection, with that new ability, could give you a third of the mana cost of a discarded Eternal, or some other such monster. Which is a pretty good deal for 3.

Otherwise, I'll probably end up vaguely agreeing with most of your other suggestions there.

I approve of boosting life gain cards.

Let's set the Bio Trophy to double its counter every time you sacrifice an effect instead of just adding 10 .

Graveyard return giving you mana is too good though. Use remembrance to dumb an eternal into the grave, and then get back 20 mana free. Yeah, I like .

Ok, then what's your suggestion? I think everyone agrees they need a big boost..

Since you can't really up their speed or anything, it's really down to adjusting the number of lifepoints given.
Either that, or the (usually) terrible idea of simply adding "Draw a card" onto the end of the abilities. The theory being that you're turning the mana straight into lifepoints, so you then get a card to replace the one you lost. Although I doubt anyone would see that as a viable solution.

The one you suggested before would probably work for Lucky Save, as you'd physically have to play the monster first anyway (thus stopping the hypothetical Eternal combo), as well as for Rebuild (not too many effects that would give much of a gain, anyway). Maybe Ressurection for two mana, to make it marginally less useless?

Making Res 2 would still be useless. Heck, even zero cost would still probably never get played. It needs something additional. I wonder, is it possible to select two or three monsters from the grave to go to your hand? It'd be kinda like Junkyard, except weaker and much more limited.

I'll point out now that Resurrection and Lucky Save (possibly Rebuild too though I'm not sure) have had cost decreases already. Even if they were free I wouldn't expect to see them used anywhere outside of a graveyard synergy deck. Something like cost refund for the bouncing cards like Lucky Save and Warp Gate (possibly should add that one?) I could see as we have that already with Chroniton Gun as an ability.

Also sense I'm sure it'll be thrown out there eventually, I'd like Apple to not have speed summon and just have a bigger life gain than Gift of Life to make up for that. It'd just be too interchangeable. Having a significant difference in cost/life boost would be nice for decks that like to keep high life over using life regain for surprise value (like Yaiba or Life Eater decks).

Hmmm. These changes will make my self-mutilation deck more reliable. Yay!

This is just the effect version of Resurrection, and it also is pretty sucky.

In other card games these would be used because often they have limit restrictions on how many of a card your allowed to use in your deck, CMC does not have any limit, thus they are practically useless.

well, that's really a tourney rule, isn't it?

It is kind of odd that you don't see more resurrection in tournaments.

Anyway, boost the amount of life for Apple and Gift, but I would just lower the Burrito by 1 across the colors. I could see it being played at 2/2/2, but right now you're paying as much as a swimsuit.

As for the other three: Is there a problem with Lucky Save? Shadow is completely right about FMV being better against monsters, but there are also spells. Lucky Save has a nice bit of versatility if you consider it breaks any destruction spell in the game and can save your creature. I think Shad was completely on track with the return of cost... but just not on resurrection or rebuild. For Lucky, you'd need to have the card in play first. I don't think refunding 1/3-1/2 of the cost is a bad idea at all. Good call.

As for Resurrection and Rebuild... I dunno. As I said before, Rebuild needs to be 2G, but that will just balance it's cost, it won't actually help the card. Mitring, at least, can be destruction bait or sac'd for mana gain. These two just feel.. iffy. The only reason I've ever run Rebuild was because I didn't want to run Bakuga. Not for any serious purposes, because it fit the theme better. That's... kinda pathetic. I dunno, these are definitely bad, but I have no idea what to do here.

Completely off the wall idea but hopefully it will inspire a better idea. What if Resurrection/Rebuild gave you mana upon casting equal to the number of cards you have in hand divided by 2? Basically all it does at best is refund the cost of the spell and it's already been established even at zero cost these spells would probably not be used, but it's an idea.

Actually, how about using them to return 2 cards to your hand? So you get net card advantage, but are limited by whatever is available in your graveyard, and have them still cost 2 or 3 mana.

Gift of Life: Up it's life gain to 65.

Apple: Up it's life gain to 100.

Space Burrito: Lower the cost by 1/1/1

Rebuild/Resurrection/Lucky Save: Make them all free to use.

The Mitiring: Make it free to activate it's ability, and give it speed summon.

Exile Wrote:Actually, how about using them to return 2 cards to your hand? So you get net card advantage, but are limited by whatever is available in your graveyard, and have them still cost 2 or 3 mana.

Shadow mentioned this too. Currently CMC's code makes it impossible to target multiple cards at once, so the only way to do this would be to target one card you want, and get a second random one from the remaining cards in your graveyard.

Yeah, definitely not Lucky Save: as it is, it's used to return stuff like Boardroom Avenger, and transformed versions of Argent, &c., which have Zero cost, (speed summon), so they can just play them again and attack and do massive damage, not to mention the recovered HP because they are just played again.

Any chance it could be handled similar to discard? Like how if you have a full hand, and someone ToK's you.

It certainly would still require the addition of new code, but I wouldn't think that it would be that complicated of an addition.

And random card back to hand is just eh. Could make the card cantrip instead. So return a card and draw a card. But if it's not to much work, I'd prefer the first option.

And I think when you return a creature with lucky save, you should be able to get all of the monster's cost back. Think of it as a one time use Chroniton Gun that can only be used on your own creatures, but has an added surprise value. Though if you get the cost of the creature back, you could probably make it cost 3L without too many objections.

I'm okay with a 3 Lucky Save that refunds cost.

I don't like the "return two" options for Resurrection/Rebuild... they just seem kludgy.  I could see use for them at zero cost (like in a Mechazor deck), though this would obviously put Mitiring at a disadvantage.  What if Mitiring didn't blow up on use?  It'd obviously have to be more expensive, like maybe 3 to cast, zero sac, and 3 to activate (and block dizzy?), but that might be the only solution without completely overhauling the ability.

As to life-gainers... 2/2/2 for Burrito, 3 for GoL, and 100 life for Apple.  Fair enough? BTW, I don't think anyone considered Hull Plating decks as an optimal use for life-gainers.

Gift of life: 65 sounds good
Apple: 100 sounds good. (Though Shadow, your logic is flawed because it doesn't cost two more, unless you have to sac a spot to make it open)
Space Burrito: This is actually pretty useful, but for the cost of a Swimsuit you might as well play that. 2/2/2 sounds fine.
Lucky Save: This card probably is fine as is...Though a refund like "Gain half the monsters sac value" would probably be nice as well. (If there's a refund, it'd need a small increase as well.)
Resurrection/Rebuild: Unfortunately, these cards aren't all that useful, and a cost decrease really won't change that much. Adding a second card wouldn't be all that useful either, since you probably wouldn't get what you want. Though, a second card is much better for resurection than rebuild. I know we have a lot of draw cards, but I'd actually support a one mana increase on both and then make them cantrip. (They couldn't stay the same because then they'd cost the same as AL/ToK, but you'd get to choose one of the cards you wanted back.)

Well, my two cents.

Against the refund idea on any of the cards. Can be abused horriablly a number of ways that have been pointed out. Would just lower the cost of most of them, like space Burrito and Gift of life. Lucky Save is good as is since it can be used to save a card against monster Ds and attacking. Re-build and Resurection or very good cards. You get a monster of effect that have been destroyed or discarded, thats great on it's own since it gives you the chance to reuse those cards. Also, concider the colors. Would think it would be harder for a grey card to bring stuff back in comparison to a light card. Apple you are paying the 5 and 1 turn to use. Theres a little chance of your opponent to destroy it by then, unless they run mostly effect Ds.