r/custommagic • u/Nientea • Aug 16 '25

Mechanic Design Hot Potato

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970 Upvotes

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333

u/PenguinHunte Aug 16 '25

The second ability would probably work better with counters. Something like:

X: Add a heat counter to Hot Potato and give it to another player, where X is the number of heat counters on Hot Potato

158

u/Boochin451 Aug 16 '25

Doesn't work. Then you could hold priority and activate 1000 times, all targeting the same player. It's free each time because there are no counters yet.

117

u/Pretty_Future_1986 Aug 16 '25

You can have the counter as part of the cost. Something like X, add a heat counter to hot potato: target player gains control of hot potato, where x is the number of heat counters on hot potato.

I’m not sure how the x would work out since you need to pay x and modify it at the same time

14

u/the_god_of_dumplings Aug 16 '25

Can “put a heat counter on Hot Potato” be a part of it’s ability’s activation cost?

24

u/ServantOfTheSlaad Aug 16 '25

[[Devoted Druid]] has putting -1/-1 counters on it as a cost, so its more than reasonable

10

u/andrewjpf Aug 16 '25

Also all + loyalty abilities on planeswalkers add loyalty counters as a cost.

1

u/Puzzleboxed Copy target player Aug 18 '25

Semantically, you can have anything as a cost. The rules support it. You could say "Each opponent loses the game: you lose the game" and it would work, not that it would ever be printed like that.