Grim Shackles - CotW nominee (4/18/2005)

[Guesswork]

Grim Shackles (1B)
Enchant Creature

Enchanted creature gets -4/-0.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if Grim Shackles is in your graveyard, you may pay 2BB. If you do, put target creature card from a graveyard into play under your control, then return Grim Shackles to play enchanting that creature.

[Litlfatdog]

nice. i really like it. can't think of any cards like this. and thank you for costing it correctly.

[who is the pilot]

with the name and the ability, i'd love to see the art for this card. . .cheap, reusable creature reanimation at the expense of offense. . .fixed animate dead. . .

[St@rWizard]

I like this a lot. The flavor is just gold. Good job, GW.

[Mana Geek]

Ah, I like this. Although I don't know if -4/-0 is that big of a deal when you are digging out the fatties used in any reanimation deck. But reanimation deck probably would not use that anyway...

I would have suggested making it reduce the toughness of enchanted creature as well, but it is your call.

Anyway, congrats for nomination. May the best card win.

[Provoke]

i would love to see this + simulacrum...

[keldon]

This is not meant to reanimate fatties, IMO, this is more a fixed Recurring Nightmare, to recur CIP-effect creatures...

[Drakonis Mage]

Decently powerful with the right CIP effects to abuse. I like it.

[Eye of Shizo]

no, no, no, this is just waaay undercosted

The Animate Dead ability is broken in half, no.

Just a simple no

[fooligan]

wizards, to my knowledge, no longer uses negatives to individual power or toughness

[Guesswork]

wizards, to my knowledge, no longer uses negatives to individual power or toughness
Skullclamp.

If this hit toughness, you could pack Eternal Witnesses, or something with an even stronger 187 ability, it would die upon entering play, and you'd get to recur it again the next turn.

With this only affecting power, you need enchantment removal, some way to sacrifice your creature, or you need to lose the creature in combat in order to recur this enchantment every upkeep. That keeps it from being a cut-and-dry two-card combo: you need some third party in there in order to abuse it to its fullest.

[Banisher]

How about with Akroma? Wouldn't this reanimate her and then fall off because of the pro-black? Great card, by the way.

[8thjunkie]

I was thinking the same thing Banisher.

Even funnier with the firecat:

he turns into a recurring Spark elemental! LOL~!

[fooligan]

im not arguing what would happen if you made certain changes, im just telling you when changes need to be made.

[Guesswork]

im not arguing what would happen if you made certain changes, im just telling you when changes need to be made.
Again: Skullclamp. (In other words, I think that you're mistaken about WotC "no longer using negatives to individual power or toughness".)

As for Akroma / pro black... interesting!! I must say, I had never thought of that. In an ideal world, adding "Protection doesn't remove Grim Shackles" to this card's text box wouldn't make the card look huge and unwieldy, but alas, it does. I think that the balance comes in the fact that you have to activate this thing for double-B, and any cards with pro black are going to cost some white. So, in the case of Akroma, barring an Entomb, you run the risk of drawing some triple-W fatty that you'll never be able to play. That's a balancing factor. (And, Entomb is banned or restricted almost everywhere it can be played.)

[monkeyballz]

Yay Braids! ...upkeep, reanimate her. Opponent loses something. You can lose Braids, and get her back in a turn for her mana cost!

Very cool, tho. Could work well with any number of creatures. Cloudchaser eagle goes into my decks again!

[fooligan]

richard garfeild made skullclamp, he pretty much had creative license on that one... hence the anomaly
any ways since when did people start justifying things with skullclamp...

[YugDung]

fooligan: i'm just gonna call you plain wrong on the individual power toughness thing. Negatives just aren't as widely used as positives are.

I like the card... It's most interesting in limited, i think.

[fooligan]

the only thing actualy akin to this in the way it effects either power or toughness decisively as a reduction is that terrible sword dancer, and that just didnt make sense in standard or in 8th...
im only talking about effects like -x/-0 or -0/-x, they have gone the way of the -1/-1 counter, the pay x life cost and the +2/+2 counter.

[Guesswork]

I don't think that there's any way you can say that, especially when there are examples like Cabal Trainee (http://gatherer.wizards.com/gathererlookup.asp?set=Judgment&name=cabal_trainee) and your own example of Sword Dancer (http://gatherer.wizards.com/gathererlookup.asp?set=EighthEdition&name=sword_dancer) in recent memory, and there are plenty of other cards that affect both power and toughness, but disproportionately (Infectious Rage (http://gatherer.wizards.com/gathererlookup.asp?set=Judgment&name=infectious_rage), Crown of Suspicion (http://gatherer.wizards.com/gathererlookup.asp?set=Onslaught&name=crown_of_suspicion), and the aforementioned Skullclamp). You could say the same thing about Squirrel creature tokens and islandwalk - we haven't seen either of those obscure effects on a card for a while, but that doesn't mean that WotC has stopped printing cards like those forever.

I mean, point me to the article where a WotC employee says what you're saying, and I might believe you (or I might not: WotC employees don't always agree on these things). I suspect that p/t effects that only knock one stat are not often printed because there's not often a reason to print them. If there's no reason, I agree, WotC generally sticks with the familiar -X/-X formula. But, I have a reason, which I have stated, and I see no reason why you should be taking issue with this card.

[fooligan]

tranee isnt a good example as it was in the same block as shambling swarm which is a reminder of how the most recent big turning point happened somewhere in between onslaught and mirrodin centering somewhere near 8th. you can literaly see how they put their glasses back on to take a hard look at the game, for better or for worse.
i will concede to you that this is still acceptable as i have no intention of trolling for references, tho i do want it to be understood that there is grounds for my assertion and that this mechanic is looking asif its the next off the bus, no new card in the last 8 sets has featured this ability (and this is a fairly easy ability to make into a card it really has no situational issues with flavor as the afformentioned tokens and land walks do) and only one has been printed recently to no real ends, its a fact that -0/-x is gone and it seems asif its brother has had its day.
were certainly not going to see any more black damage prevention effects like trainee and were not going to be seeing white or green using alternative methods for their fogs, this (your card) seems the only plausable use for the mechanic.


my issue i had with your card was more an issue im having with the cotw. im always seeing a handful of errors or faults in the nominees and form my stand point yours was no acception, so on went my crusade to uphold the forum rules and keep tight the wording which led me to this disscussion we are currently having.
i still have my doubts on if we should be using down and out or straight up bad mechanics but aslong as their going to good use i guess i can take it.

[skizzik_777]

first off i think this card is awsome... kind of interesting on how it works really well with akroma and how it makes fatties like yosei work really well with shirei... anwyays good luck though its a bit late now