Off-Hand Brace - Magic

The artwork depicts a hand brace my mom got for me after I injured my wrist by falling off my bike. As with my other "totally mundane" cards (Nourishing Suet and Bottled Water), the idea came to me suddenly. The convoke keyword on both the card itself as a spell and the equip cost represents it being easier to put this thing on with a bit of help. (I considered having the equip cost be simply "{1}, Tap a creature that you control", but I figured that giving the equip ability convoke would be more interesting.) As for the effect, well, this hand brace contains metal to help support the wrist, and I'd imagine that said metal could help with blocking an attack in a pinch (note: don't try this at home, or anywhere for that matter, especially if you're wearing such a hand brace for the same reason as me (read: you hurt your wrist to the extent that it's painful to move it)). Therefore, the brace reduces the damage that you take (again, don't try this in real life, especially if your wrist is hurt badly enough to need this sort of supportive device on it... it likely won't end well). Of course, like any injured-joint support, it inhibits movement of the joint, which would make it harder to swing a weapon or slap/swat someone; thus, it reduces the impact of your own attack. (I don't think it would inhibit throwing a punch, but that would be a bad idea if you've hurt your wrist... then again, the same could be said for slapping someone or hitting them with a stick, sword, or other hand-held whack-things-you-don't-like tool melee weapon... and it would also hurt to pull back a bowstring, and I'd imagine dealing with the recoil of firing a gun might not be pretty... okay, getting into a fight with an injured wrist is a dumb idea no matter how you go about it. Regardless, Magic doesn't care to differentiate creatures by how they attack adversaries, so this card has to inhibit any creature's attacks equally, no matter how much it doesn't make sense for a hand brace to make it difficult to kick people, assault them with nothing more than the power of your mind, or execute some other means of attack not based on using your hands.) By the way, this is called Off-Hand Brace because it's depicting a brace worn on the left hand, and most people are right-handed. (Sorry, left-handed people, but there's only so much a single card can do; I have to generalize where I can.) If I find myself painfully short on ideas, I'll probably make a card named Main-Hand Brace for a brace worn on the right hand, which will basically be this card, but with bigger numbers. Its artwork will be the artwork for this card flipped around mirror-style, as I don't have a brace worn on the right hand to take a photo of.

Rulings 1: An activated ability with convoke works exactly like a spell with convoke.

Rulings 1.1: After determining how much mana you'll pay to activate the ability, you then pay that mana cost. (See Rulings 1.4 and 1.7.) In addition to whatever mana you spend, you may tap untapped creatures you control while paying the cost in order to help pay for the cost. (For instance, you could pay a cost of {5} with 5 mana, 4 mana and 1 creature, 3 mana and 2 creatures, 2 mana and 3 creatures, 1 mana and 4 creatures, or 5 creatures.) A creature tapped this way cannot be used to do anything else that would require tapping it, such as attacking or paying for costs, until it is untapped. (See Rulings 1.8.)

Rulings 1.2: You can use creatures with summoning sickness to pay for Convoke costs (since summoning sickness only prevents tapping a creature in order to attack or activate one of its own abilities).

Rulings 1.3: Convoke doesn’t change an ability's mana cost or converted mana cost.

Rulings 1.4: When calculating an ability's total cost, include any alternative costs, additional costs, or anything else that increases or reduces the cost to activate the ability. Convoke applies after the total cost is calculated.

Rulings 1.5: Because convoke isn’t an alternative cost, it can be used in conjunction with alternative costs.

Rulings 1.6: Tapping a multicolored creature using convoke will pay for {1} or one mana of your choice of any of that creature’s colors.

Rulings 1.7: When using convoke to activate an ability with {X} in its mana cost, first choose the value for X. That choice, plus any cost increases or decreases, will determine the spell’s total cost. Then you can tap creatures you control to help pay that cost.

Rulings 1.8: If a creature you control has a mana ability with {T} in the cost, activating that ability while activating an ability with convoke will result in the creature being tapped when you pay the convoke ability's costs. You won’t be able to tap it again for convoke. Similarly, if you sacrifice a creature to activate a mana ability while activating an ability with convoke, that creature won’t be on the battlefield when you pay the convoke ability's costs, so you won’t be able to tap it for convoke.

Rulings 2: Technically, the equip keyword is an activated ability. Thus, Ruling 1 applies to an equip cost with convoke.