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[eHalcyon]

Ranger
$8 - Action
Set this aside.  At the start of each of your turns, reveal the top 4 cards of your deck.  Put the revealed Victory cards into your hand.  Put the other cards on top of your deck in any order.

This card is basically the Prince of Scouts.  It isn't exactly the same as a Princed Scout.  It does not give you an extra +1 action, because the point of Ranger (like Scout) is to vacuum up green from the top of your deck.  Compared to actually playing Prince on Scout, Ranger has less opportunity cost because you don't need to buy a Scout and you don't need to get two cards to collide.  Compared to Prince+anything else, this has the advantage of not needing to collide with anything (and not needing to permanently set aside a copy of that thing), but the potential benefit is arguably lower.

But does it work?  Is it interesting?  Theoretically, this card could actually enable interesting hybrid VP strategies in the way Scout wishes it could.  It also has interactions with cards that care about handsize like Secret Chamber and Vault, as well as cards that care about the top of your deck like Wishing Well and Mystic.  Outside of combos, this card should also allow you to green earlier and with greater impunity.

If it does work, could a similar treatment be given to other cards?

[market squire]

I guess this would work. But I don't like adding variations of Prince. Imo, cards are generally more interesting if they are shuffled in the deck. Prince does exactly the oppsosite - but with any (cheap) card. By introducing that own principle, Prince is definitely worth it. Variations of Prince aren't, because, hey you can have a Prince of Scouts if you want.

Maybe it could be a self-topdecker or a normal Duration card.

[eHalcyon]

I guess this would work. But I don't like adding variations of Prince. Imo, cards are generally more interesting if they are shuffled in the deck. Prince does exactly the oppsosite - but with any (cheap) card. By introducing that own principle, Prince is definitely worth it. Variations of Prince aren't, because, hey you can have a Prince of Scouts if you want.

Maybe it could be a self-topdecker or a normal Duration card.

The idea behind this card specifically is that I think the effect of Scout is interesting, but its opportunity cost is too high.  Prince of Scouts is similarly interesting, but it has an even higher opportunity cost.  If you went for Prince, you'd almost certainly rather have Prince of anything else.  You probably wouldn't have a Scout in your deck already, and you almost certainly wouldn't get one just to play it with Prince.

This combined card tries to lower that opportunity cost.  You don't have to buy a Scout and you don't have to collide it with another action card to get it going.  The effect is essentially what you'd get if you had a Haven'd Scout every turn.  I think that this would be interesting by enabling earlier greening as well as the fabled Scout+hybrid VP combos.  My question is whether others think likewise.

[silverspawn]

Well, what Prince of Scouts does is essentially make you very resistant towards greening. And of course, dual type cards are super good if they're there. It could be interesting. I think it's too weak though, even with the big advantages it has over actually doing it with Prince. The missing Action is just so big, and Scout is a terrible Prince target anyway. I'd up it to 5 cards. Don't know if that's enough. More than 5 is awkward, so if it's not, you need to buff it in some other way. You could of course add the +Action, but that doesn't really fit into the concept.

[pacovf]

Maybe add a "When you gain this, " at the beginning of the card.

[enfynet]

That could be interesting. The moment you gain the card it becomes active, therefore not requiring an Action to play it.

[LastFootnote]

As a thought exercise, it seems fine. As an actual card, I think I'd like to see it a little less similar to Scout. Maybe less powerful and more reasonably priced? Like just, look at the top 2 cards of your deck and discard any number of them, for $5.

[enfynet]

I like it. Of course, on its own its not very interesting, but can be very useful with card drawers.

[popsofctown]

Sick with Throne Room.

I like it at 7$

[eHalcyon]

Thanks for all the thoughts!  This was just a thought exercise.  As an actual card, I don't think looking at only the top 2 cards would be that exciting, and not drawing the Victory cards would eliminate some combos that would be nice to keep (since they aren't really viable with Scout but could be viable with this card). 

There are a variety of things that could be adjusted, some of which have been discussed already.  I don't have any opportunity to playtest so I won't investigate those avenues right now, but I thought the idea was interesting.  Maybe somebody else will want to work on it.

pops' comment about Throne Room makes me wonder if the card would need to be reworded to prevent doubling or tripling, as that would be a big and swingy increase in power.  Since it's not a duration, I don't believe the TR/KC would be stuck in play, but matching Ranger up with those cards would provide a huge extra value.  Moreover, it would be odd to track.  The card is set aside as a reminder, but there would be no reminder for a TR or KC on initial play.  Rewording it to fix that would be pretty easy, of course.  Just needs an "If you did", or maybe even drop the entire power to a conditional "while this is set aside", which might have very minor interactions with Island and Native Village.

But again, I'll leave that up to anyone else who wants to work on it.

[popsofctown]

MTG design philosophy says that remembering something will be true for the rest of the game in perpetuity is usually pretty easy, especially if it was expensive to induce.  Their used to be no physical representation for planeswalker ultimates that last all game because player's rarely forgot about them.

Throne Room ranger is probably fine.

[LastFootnote]

MTG design philosophy says that remembering something will be true for the rest of the game in perpetuity is usually pretty easy, especially if it was expensive to induce.  Their used to be no physical representation for planeswalker ultimates that last all game because player's rarely forgot about them.

Throne Room ranger is probably fine.

But you only had one of each Planeswalker in a game, right? You could potentially play 4 Rangers in a game and have trouble remembering how many you've throned.

Prince aside, there's no reason Ranger shouldn't be a Duration card. That way this is all very simple. Ranger stays in play for the rest of the game and Throne Room (or King's Court, etc.) stays in play with it.

[enfynet]

Unless you avoid that by having the initial play be on-gain. It should, at that point, never be able to be played with Throne/King.

[pedroluchini]

Unless you avoid that by having the initial play be on-gain. It should, at that point, never be able to be played with Throne/King.

As long as we're tought-exercising... I'd say this doesn't need to be an Action at all. It's just a card with an on-gain effect, and it never enters your deck. Well, presumably it would jump back into your deck at the end of the game to count for Gardens/Vineyard/Silk Road/etc., but until then it's just... a card. So what type would that be?

[Awaclus]

Unless you avoid that by having the initial play be on-gain. It should, at that point, never be able to be played with Throne/King.

As long as we're tought-exercising... I'd say this doesn't need to be an Action at all. It's just a card with an on-gain effect, and it never enters your deck. Well, presumably it would jump back into your deck at the end of the game to count for Gardens/Vineyard/Silk Road/etc., but until then it's just... a card. So what type would that be?

Does it even need a type then?

[enfynet]

It needs a type for cards that care about type. Instinctively it seems like Action matches what it does, but maybe we can have a new type for cards that are perpetually in play?

[Witherweaver]

I would say you lose nothing with calling it Action, unless you don't want it to be gained by Stonemason or effected by Talisman, or the other cards that care about Actions.

[silverspawn]

It needs a type for cards that care about type. Instinctively it seems like Action matches what it does, but maybe we can have a new type for cards that are perpetually in play?

I don't think it needs a type. There is already a card that's neither an Action, a Victory card, a Treasure, or a Curse. Of course this card happens to be a reaction and a shelter, but still, there is no reason why it can't have no types.

[Witherweaver]

Well, there may be another card in the future that gets a card into your deck without gaining it (As it is, you couldn't be Masqueraded it since there's no way for it to get into your opponent's deck.)  So it may be good to have the card playable.

Or just add "you may" to the set-aside part.

[silverspawn]

So it may be good to have the card playable.

but why... there are plenty of cards you can't play, and it's not a problem

[Witherweaver]

So it may be good to have the card playable.

but why... there are plenty of cards you can't play, and it's not a problem

Just so that it's useful in that hypothetical case.

[popsofctown]

MTG design philosophy says that remembering something will be true for the rest of the game in perpetuity is usually pretty easy, especially if it was expensive to induce.  Their used to be no physical representation for planeswalker ultimates that last all game because player's rarely forgot about them.

Throne Room ranger is probably fine.

But you only had one of each Planeswalker in a game, right? You could potentially play 4 Rangers in a game and have trouble remembering how many you've throned.

Prince aside, there's no reason Ranger shouldn't be a Duration card. That way this is all very simple. Ranger stays in play for the rest of the game and Throne Room (or King's Court, etc.) stays in play with it.

No, it's possible to have multiple Planeswalker ultimates going.  But admittedly none of them stacked meaningfully before they started adding physical representations

[popsofctown]

I think it'd be fun to give Ranger all the types except curse, cuz like, why not? gain it with mine, Squire, Graverobber, university-cost reduction, and REBUILD

[LastFootnote]

I think it'd be fun to give Ranger all the types except curse, cuz like, why not? gain it with mine, Squire, Graverobber, university-cost reduction, and REBUILD

Because why not.

[Kirian]

Give it the "Gunpowder" type.