Submission: Ritual of Awakening

jblacey wrote:

A minion may play only one Ritual of Awakening between their unlock phases.

No, sorry, you got it wrong. The wording is tricky:

Only usable by a Black Hand vampire.
Unlock a card you control that is not a minion.
It does not unlock as normal during your next unlock phase.
Only one Ritual of Awakening can be played on a card between your untap phases.

I try it in other words: One (or more) Black Hand vampire can play as many Rituals of Awakening as his wants, as long as different targets are chosen.

Ritual of Awakening is indeed intended to be an On the Qui Vive for non-minion cards in game (= non-minion permanents; but this is not a V:tES keyword), but of course they cannot play reactions cards themselves since they are not minions.

Maybe Ritual of Awakening could be phrased like this:
»Only usable by a Black Hand vampire.
Unlock a non-minion permanent you control.
It does not unlock as normal during your next unlock phase.
Only one Ritual of Awakening can be played on the same non-minion permanent between your untap phases.«

The most horrible scenario can imagine right now involves House of Sorrow (www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?lib=1970), since you could in fact untap the same non-minion permanent three times by using one Ritual of Awakening on the permanent and one Ritual of Awakening on House of Sorrow.

This is some kind of setup, and if a player managed to get it done, he maybe would just deserve it.

Oh, that was the fuss about the unlock phase thing...

That should be worded pretty easily.

Ritual of Awakening

Requires a ready Black Hand vampire.
Unlock a locked card you control that is not a minion. That card does not unlock as normal on your next unlock phase. A card can be unlocked with Ritual of Awakening only once between your unlock phases.

No fuss. It's clear enough, if we consider that Remover, On the Qui Vive and House of Sorrow are still a thing. Used said cards as reference.

Add a blood cost if play testing demands it.

Someone might start to argue that the text only refers to the exact one copy of Ritual of Awakening, but then punch them in the face.