Shallow Basin
Land
: Add
, sacrifice ~: Add or . Create a tapped treasure token.
Good to the last drop.

Stagnant Pool
Slag Pile
Tinder-bark Grove
Over-grazed Pasture

Is this balanced? In a fast enough format this gives you access to the colors you need long enough that it won't matter that you lose the land.
I could redo this with "remove a resource counter from... Then if ~ has no more resource counters on it...". Waiting 2 turns to get the treasure and a land into the yard could actually restrain certain strategies. Usually getting more uses out of it first is a good thing though, so going that route would necessitate having the land etb tapped.

I'm not a fan of lands that mess with the mana economy. These types of lands usually end up either useless or broken, and unlike, say, Time Warp effects, they aren't broken in an exciting or interesting way. They just mess with game balance without offering anything in exchange.

I must concede that these things rarely work out.

I like it as a concept. Seems balanced, but yeah it can be hard to say with these. The main thing where I think to break this it to take some overwhelming advantage with generating bunch of artifact tokens but dunno if there's really something there. I don't think it would be as strong as having artifact lands? I suppose these might still be broken for affinity. Like they kinda work as one-use artifact dual lands in there - that leave you with a treasure to use as well to use on the following turns.

Grim Fruition
Sorcery
~ costs 1 less to cast for each creature that died this turn.
Destroy all creatures.

On one hand, this is only cheaper when there's less to kill. On the other hand, if you were going to board wipe, weren't you going to swing all out anyway?

Sac your board to a sac outlet and "oh yeah and I also destroy all your creatures for as well". Seems... strong but ok still(?)

I thought about adding 1 mana to the cost. Not that a deck with enough sacrificing going on would be stopped by that. This could do some damage in the right format, but I suspect it's ok. If it was really a problem I could make it

Commander Melesy
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield or deals combat damage to an opponent, create a food token, a clue token and a treasure token.
Tap an untapped token you control: ~ gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
3/4

I've been messing around with a trinkets-matter archetype.
I got the name by moving all the letters in "Nimitz" one word back through the alphabet.

Take Stock
Instant
Create a food token. If you already control a food token, you may instead create a clue token.
Then, if you control both a food and a clue, the activated abilities of food and clues you control cost less to activate this turn.

I don't think "already" is necessary, but it reads much more cleanly.
Should I get treasure in there too? It might be a bit much, but I like the food > clue > treasure hierarchy. Letting it give you a treasure might actually make it less powerful if it's another step to getting the cost reduction. I imagine a archetype where you hoard a lot of trinket tokens.


Commander Melesy
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield or deals combat damage to an opponent, create a food token, a clue token and a treasure token.
Tap X untapped tokens you control: ~ gets +X/+0 and gains ward until end of turn.
3/4
I just felt this needed a little something extra.


Sphinx Of Three Guesses
Creature - Sphinx Advisor
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, create a clue token.
, sacrifice 3 clue tokens: Draw 5 cards.
3/3

Capricious Banneret
Artifact creature - Automaton Soldier
When ~ enters the battlefield, look at the top six cards of your library. You may reveal a creature card from among them and note that card's creature types. Note that card's creature types. Put all cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order.
Spells of the noted creature types you cast cost less to cast.
1/1
"Sir, the enemy procured automatons from the same supplier, and they all share a control module see..."

Bosk Banneret by way of Brass Herald
Does it suck too much to not get to draw the revealed card? I was hoping to keep the cost on this one low.
Is it unexciting without a boost to the chosen creature type?
I look forward to seeing just what kind of decks would run this. Ideally, you would stick very close to your chosen tribe.


Hungry Hippo
Creature - Hippo
~ costs less to cast for each food you control.
4/4
Yes, very.
Does Hasbro own that license?

Covert Cartographer
Creature - Halfling Scout
The first time a Scout deals combat damage to an opponent each turn, create a clue token.
1/1
A card for a clue-heavy set designed to work with the tribes of Ossia. And it's multiplayer. That should explain the weird bits I hope.


Insertion Specialist
Creature - Halfling Scout
~ can’t be blocked as long as you sacrificed a clue this turn.
3/2
Just tell me where to go.

That Specialist looks pretty bad when compared to Latch Seeker but I suppose it can make sense as a limited card similar to Keymaster Rogue.

Honestly, I wasn't really sure what to do with the cards stat and cost-wise. I just wanted to get some Ossia/WWI overlap cards and to establish some ascending payoffs for a clue theme. I never really got too far on that 2nd bit though.


An idea:
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may tap X clues you control. If you do, scry X.
Meh.

The easy payoff:
Cypher Fragment
Artifact - Clue
Sacrifice a clue: Scry 1.
, Sacrifice ~: Draw a card.
Each piece of the puzzle hints towards the next. Soon everything will fall into place.

A bigger payoff:
Sphinx Of The Third Guess
Creature - Sphinx Advisor
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, create a clue token.
, sacrifice 3 clue tokens: Draw 5 cards.
3/3
One more try.


The maybe, it's not super worth it, but you've amassed more clues than you can use payoff:
Allocation Gator
Creature - Crocodile
Hexproof, trample
When ~ enters the battlefield, sacrifice any number of food and clues you control.
For each food sacrificed this way, gain 3 life and put that many +1/+1 counters on ~.
For each clue sacrificed this way, draw a card and create a 1/1 blue Scout with hexproof.
4/4

Razorborne was right that this is too weak.
Final Defense
Artifact - Equipment
Whenever a nontoken creature dies, you may exile that card. If you do, return each other card exiled with ~ to its owner’s graveyard.
Equipped creature gets +0/+X, where X is the exiled creature's toughness.
equip

Write It Down
Sorcery
Discard any number of cards. Create twice that many clue tokens.

Sincesome effects actually want you to have few cards in hand, could this actually be too good? I bet it could cost U, and probably be an instant if it always hit every card in your hand.

How about a toned down version?

Cypher Specialist 1U
Creature - Human Advisor
Discard a card, : Create two clue tokens.
1/1

Soulthirster
Creature - Vampire Assassin
Menace
Whenever ~ blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, move up to two +1/+1 counters from that creature onto ~.
2/2
Arcbound Fiend says you can "move" counters. Suck it complex syntax.
Is there room for a "Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a planeswalker, move up to two loyalty counters from that planeswalker onto a planeswalker you control"?


Commanding Officer
Creature - Human Soldier
When ~ enters the battlefield, distribute two +1/+1 counters among soldiers or armies you control.
Creatures you control have Ward , where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on that creature.
2/2


And now for something completely different:
Havald Schoss
Legendary creature - Dwarf Pilot
Defender
Other pilots you control get +3/+0 and have defender.
Vehicles you control have haste.
3/3

Prismatic Return
Sorcery
Return target creature card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
If was spent to cast ~ put a lifelink counter on that creature. If ; flying, if ; haste, and if ; trample.

This reminds me of these "star tokens" I saw on the reddit some time ago (each having "Sacrifice X Stars: Scry X"). Well, there been a number of suggestions for artifacts tokens that sac to scry. One the more recent was "compass" that just sacced to scry 2.

I have a hard time seeing it being that desirable to sacrifice Clues for scry. Scry 1 is worth extremely little as an effect. Like I posted this "Gitaxian Hindsight" as a point about how much weaker scrying (in relatively low amounts) is compared to drawing a card.

This feels a bit "off" to me. I would be considering something like "Whenever this attacks, you may sacrifice six Clues. If you do, draw six cards" or whenever it deals combat damage to a player or like ", Sacrifice six Clues:". The thing that attracts to me is that the payoff is a much more noteworthy, it has some justification and reason to be a creature with the clause requiring combat or at least tapping, and requiring six changes a bit how the game is played due that prolly requiring you to actually conserve and amass those clue tokens which in itself creates this nice bit of tension I like. Paying 6 to draw 5 just feels blah - it's basically what the Clue tokens do with a minor bonus.

A token type for scyring would be nice. I'm not sure what word you'd use as a milder form of "clue" though. Hint tokens?

I had the idea that if you had more clues than you could use in the next few turns, then it would be worthwhile to sac them for a smaller benefit. It's just never really worth out cash out your clues for so little benefit. Tapping clues to scry is pretty tempting- but granting it as a static ability might be too good at smoothing out draws to hand out cheaply.
Really wish that clues had to tap to draw so I could make people choose between tapping to draw or scry.
How about this:

or do I just need to up the scry amount?


I figured the extra two cards you get from cashing in three clues at once was a big bonus. I still think it is, but it really doesn't read like that. Maybe the ability is better suited to an enchantment or another clue artifact.
If you aren't actually paying to activate the clues, then you need to save up more than 3 to gatekeep the effect.
The attack to activate the ability could work. But, I was planning to pair up clues with an activated abilities archetype, so: