Sometimes I stumble upon cards with very off- color effects.
I mean look at sylvan library. Cast brainstorm in your draw phase, pay life to draw more cards.
It should have been some ice age rare saying:
Lim-Dul's Library: UBB enchantment
And look at fanatical devotion: (2W) Sacrifice a creature to regenerate target creature. (and a muhahahaha)
Kinda like Unyaro Bee Sting...green direct damage!?!
that used to happen much more often than it does nowadays, but molten influence from odyssey is a more modern example of this.
Legends was particularly bad about this.
Caverns of Despair!
Gravity Sphere!
In the Eye of Chaos!
Relic Bind! RELIC BIND!!!
here's a bunch of non-blue counterspelling type cards for y'all.
Deathgrip - counter green spells
Lifeforce, Thrull Wizard, Order of the Sacred Torch - black spells
Red Elemental Blast, Burnout, Pyroblast - blue spells
Artifact Blast - counter an artifact
Goblin Artisans - counter your own artifact
Withering Boon, Brine Shaman - summon spells
Stromgald Cabal - white spells
Null Brooch - counter non-creature spell
Arenson’s Aura/Teferi’s Care - enchantments
Ring of Immortals, Avoid Fate - counter instants or enchantments targeting your cards
Equinox - counter LD spells
Illumination - artifact or enchantment
Unyaro Griffin - red burn spells
Vigilant Martyr - counter a disenchant or erase
Mages’ Contest, Molten Influence - counter any spell, sort of
Why don't you use soap?
Molten Influence really isn't countermagic, it's direct damage that's conditional. Being strictly inferior to a hypothetical card that was just 1R for four damage to target player, it isn't all that out of character for red.
The same is sort of true of Mages' Contest, although it has the potential to be an actual counterspell, albeit for a high cost, so that seems more out of character to me.
that's why i said "sort of"
i always thought dark ritual was a "green " card.
Not really. Green tends to focus (in terms of mana generation) on more permanent ways of increasing overall mana supply. This is most prevalent with land-fetch cards (Harrow, Nature's Lore) and elves, and Wild Growth/Fertile Ground type enchantments. Black's mana generation is of the one-shot variety, and not often card advantageous. Speaking of off-color cards, Mana Flare would be better off a green card, which was eventually emulated with Vernal Bloom.
yeah i think one of the weirdest 'off-color' cards is psionic blast.
but shahrazad is in a world of its own. subgames. like, wow! since blue has such tricky 'take extra turn,' 'skip extra turn,' etc, ya'd think blue would have gotten shahrzad.
ahhh... shahrazad... THE BEST CARD IN MAGIC EVER!!!
Phyrexian Tribute
2B, Sorcery, Mirage Rare
Sacrifice two creatures: Destroy target artifact.
“In your final breath you still have something to offer Phyrexia.”
—Afari, Tales
Illus. John Matson
THIS is offcolor.
Gate to Phyrexia
BB, Enchantment, Antiquities Uncommon
Sacrifice one of your creatures during your upkeep to destroy any one artifact. You may not sacrifice a creature that is already on its way to the graveyard.
“The warm rain of grease on my face immediately made it clear that I had entered Phyrexia.” —Jarsyl, Diary
Illus. Sandra Everingham
Found another one, too. This is damned powerful for black, actually.
Hell of a lot better than Xenic Poltergeist.
Hey, what about Avoid Fate? A GREEN counterspell!
G
Interrupt - Legends
Counter target spell that would affect a permanenet under your controll.
And Energy Flux......I actually side that in Extended Forbiddian every once in a while....
What about Energy Field. a Blue cart that prevents all damage that would be dealt to you.
Obstinate Familiar.
IMHO, gate to phyrexia is way powerful. Its effectiveness against artifacts is atleast as good as the traditionally anti artifact colors, red and white. It is one of the few antiquities cards that I still use regularly.
Avoid Fate sucked until interrupts were changed to instants because the actual card's text says that it only counters enchanments and interrupts. The errata now says instant, but I still think it is not-quite-useful.
I love energy flux. It used to be better, when there was no type classification in tourneys. It was good mox removal, cause I didn't have em. Still, I think it was wise to reprint it.
How about Hurricane? Have you noticed that it is rare now? Rightly so, this sucker does X damage for green, and hurts the caster - way out of color on both counts. I am surprised it is still around.
As for Sylvan Library, I think it is not really out of color. As I recall, it was supposed to be an improved form of the awful natural selection. Now we have mirri's guile, and all that stuff that lets you structure what you draw. I think blue lets you get a card advantage where green tends to let you control what you draw.
I think Psionic blast is the single most out of color card there is. It is not terribly overpowered for a red card, but to give blue the ability to zap its favorite target gets psionic blast a permanent ticket to the out-of-print pile. Ever use Psionic blast? It really is not a good card unless you are playing only blue.
narwhal is out of color - and terrible
sea troll too - out of color and terrible
apprentice wizard - produces 2 colorless mana for blue
wall of kelp - makes little ones
granite gargoyle - awesome, flying and pump defense. This should have been white and cost 1 more.
heh scryb sprite
drop of honey - unbelievably powerful green card If green could get rid of creatures this easily nowadays, I would never play any other color
fire and brimstone - white direct damage
eye for an eye - same deal
killer bees - wow, this is really something for green.
alibans tower - man, what were they thinking?
OK, I guess thats enough.
I miss scryb sprite That cad rules with Giant Growth. Killer of Serras and Sengirs. Ahh the good old days.
hah! right on! Scryb Sprites/Giant Growth were the only non-Fallen Empires cards to make it into my "all" Fallen Empires Thallid/Thrull deck... whoever heard of a set with, what... one(?) flying creature??... hmph...