UnOrthodox suppliment: Legal

Card Name:

Delayed Blast Fireball

Mana Cost:

{R}

Converted Mana Cost:

1

Types:

Sorcery

Rules Text:

Exile Delayed Blast Fireball with any number of delay counters and an equal number of blast counters on it.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if Delayed Blast Fireball is exiled with a delay counter on it, remove a delay counter from it. If there are no more delay counters on Delayed Blast Fireball, put it into your graveyard and it deals damage to all creatures and players equal to the number of blast counters on it.

Color:

Red

Color Identity:

{R}

Watermark:

None

Border Type:

Black-bordered

This printing Illustrated by Allen G. Douglas
Printing: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons – InQuest #41

UnCommander Rulings

You can choose zero for the number of delay and blast counters put on Delayed Blast Fireball, but it will normally have no effect once put in exile and stay in the exile zone, as its effect that puts it into to graveyard requires a delay counter to be removed from it first.

Delayed Blast Fireball
{R}
Sorcery
When Delayed Blast Fireball is successfully cast, put X delay counters on it. X can be any number you choose. During your upkeep, remove a delay counter from Delayed Blast Fireball. When there are no delay counters on it, Delayed Blast Fireball deals X damage to all creatures and players.

Illus. Allen G. Douglas © 1998 Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

Suspend isn’t fully representative of the original card, as the original card specifies that the counters are put on Delayed Blast Fireball once it has been successfully cast, while suspended cards are not cast until the last time counter is removed from them.

Putting the card in exile when it resolves and then casting it without paying its cost also creates issues, as the card would then need to be cast from exile, and could be countered at that juncture.

Using an Emblem may not be an accurate interpretation of the card, as the damage is stated on the original card to come from Delayed Blast Fireball, so the emblem must state Delayed Blast Fireball as the damage source. This is awkward as Delayed Blast Fireball may be in any zone at the time, and involves the use of emblems to track an effect.

All Hallow’s Eve was a good template for this card, as it is another card that puts counters on itself when it resolves, and had no clear wording on how it acted afterwards. The damage ends up being dealt from the graveyard, but the counters do not need to be tracked on any additional card, and it aligns roughly to the oracle text on an existing card with similar mechanics.
-Hamster