MTG Salvation

This is not Mortify and nowhere near clear enchantment removal. Infact it more often than not probably doesn't do what you want it to do. This effect is to me completely decent in black, as I'd much rather play Cruel Edict and splash for artifact/enchantment removal if I want that.

Damn, that art is amazing! Look at that face lmao

Not my kind of card, but it's a really cool effect.

All excellent reprints.

How does Sanctum work with Imprisoned in the Moon?

Didn't MaRo say somewhere that Gerrard was actually an RW character that they decided to make monowhite for bad reasons?

Pretender of Kher Keep 0
• Creature - Kobold C
3RR: Put a +1/+1 counter on Pretender of Kher Keep for each Kobold you control.
Someone always rises above the ranks.
0/1

Next: Show me a custom keyword mechanic, custom keyword action or custom ability word of your own design, on a common card.

Goblin Firefighter 2R
Creature - Goblin U
When Goblin Firefighter dies, destroy target land.
"Oops."
- Naknak, last word
3/1


Next: Show me a custom keyword mechanic, custom keyword action or custom ability word of your own design, on a common card.

Here's another point. When I was new, I thought creatures could attack each other. It balanced itself out somewhat - but it was because I played mostly vanilla and French vanilla cards, and because damage stayed on the creatures - I didn't know damage was removed at end of turn either.

Even if we allowed creatures to block each other when creatures are individually attacked, the game screws up completely as snowballing if you allow them to attack each other. You have to necessiate damage to stay on creatures, to make them more limited. This is why Planeswalkers work, by the way. They are simply not the same kind of gamestate as a creature with potentially infinite ability to absorb damage.

Changing the game rules like this leads either to the Provoke snowball situation if damage is removed as currently (which is a bafflingly unbalanced suggestion) or we'll have damage stay, track it with counters and every creature with other kinds of counters becomes Frankenstein's Monster. It's not a good idea.

Look at Pokémon, for example - there's a reason Energy is tracked with cards while damage is tracked with counters. It keeps tracking easier.

You really want this creature fighting to be a thing? Just go play another card game at that point. It's completely off base to add that to Magic in my eyes. As is, it'll break the game or make board states unreadable.

Quote from Anachronity »

To begin with, colors are prevented from doing certain things for largely flavorful reasons, not balance reasons. Frankly, I don't agree on what the magic design team has decided is the best mechanical way to represent each color's concept. For example I think black should have a lot more interaction with artifacts, as the color that most craves power and wealth, among other changes. But ultimately it's all a question of how you express each color, and what things each color isn't allowed to do so that the other colors are more distinct by comparison.

The flavor/balance relation is more complex than you make it out to be, and your misunderstanding of this basic property of Magic is part of your problem of understanding how the game is designed - and why, for example, that black isn't able to deal with artifacts.

The mechanical reason colors are restricted is because of Magic's land based mana system. The colors being restricted pushes you to include more colors when building a deck, but it makes your deck inconsistent and therefore weaker against more focused strategies if you do so. It's the primary reason the game works so well.

It's true that the basic idea of the five colors and their approaches and wants is based upon five relatively complex outlines of several interacting ideas. White being about structure and red being about freedom, for example. But the thing is, as Mark Rosewater has said a thousand times at this point, flavor can legitimize pretty much anything. Song of the Dryads make intuitive sense, but is a major color break as it undercuts green's basic weakness - being overtly reliant on creatures. The idea that black is greedy and materialistic isn't wrong, but to go from there and believe that black should be a primary interactor with artifacts undercut the mechanical identities of the Jeskai colors, particularly blue. And the colors need to be separated for the game to be mechanically meaningful. The moment you abandon the principles of rigid mechanical division, you might as well just abandon the colors - something other games have done, like Yu Gi Oh, a game that doesn't use colors at all. The moment you stop doing colors the way Magic does, it's no longer Magic, and you might as well play something different. Which is fine, by the way.

Here's some things that also make sense through flavor and should never be allowed in new designs:
White doing a "pure" rampant growth effect based on its emphasis on civilization and growth.
Blue having a frostbolt or an ice nova dealing direct damage.
Black gaining control of an enemy noncreature artifact already in play because black steals.
Red making an opponent discard cards because it can inspire madness or spontaneous, reckless intuition.
Green drawing cards based on its emphasis on wisdom.

White can however do effects like Knight of the White Orchid.
Blue can tap down permanents with frost effects intead of doing direct damage.
Black can "steal" artifacts from graveyards.
Red can cause each player to discard some cards then draw some cards, based on driven characters, chance and spontainty.
Green can draw its cards of wisdom as long as the card draw is connected to its creatures.

All of these are OK because they don't undercut some of the base restrictions of the colors.

The second issue you bring up, the problem with eternal formats having mechanics in wrong colors, and that blue is kind of ridiculous in eternal formats, doesn't really counteract this basic premise of mechanical color division. The problems with blue's massive mechanical arsenal and cards like Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile being more efficient than black removal - these problems are a seriously hurtful element to the game's long term health and are something that has necessiated several WotC policies to prevent future mechanical bleeds, such as Mark Rosewater's push for the Council of Colors. Using the game's inherited problems as an argument to further muddy the mechanical identities of the colors... It is like saying that since a leg has a wound, we might as well break it.

The third issue you bring up, that stuff like Enchanter's Bane should be made more of - well, I agree. But the thing is that Enchanter's Bane is not a break at all. Red is allowed deal direct damage and "punisher" effects that would otherwise be mechanical breaks (effects that allow your opponent to choose between two bad options; look at Browbeat as an example). The problem is the moment one argues that stuff like Desert Twister is OK, even if it's less efficient than say Vindicate. It's true that stuff like Sorcerer's Strongbox exists for green, but it being an artifact is very much not irrelevant here, allowing white, red and green to destroy it, blue to steal it, and black to discard it (Note: Black can discard everything, but certain cards allow the discard of artifacts in particular). Also do note that cards like Enchanter's Bane are quite novel. They don't mass print stuff like it because it's new mechanical space (still well within the color mechanics mind you), and each release has to cover bread and butter effects, which fills up a lot of slots.

The Last Tree G
Legendary Enchantment - Aura R
Enchant Forest
As long as you control only one Forest, enchanted land has "T: Add GG." and "Green creatures you control get +1/+1."
Its children swarm around it; they will protect it forever.

Next: Show me a custom keyword mechanic, custom keyword action or custom ability word of your own design, on a common card.

(By the way, the card referenced by the colorless ability is Conflux - each ability is a reference to a specific instant or sorcery with the same cost as that card, but colorshifted. That said, this is not a defence - my card shouldn't win. It's too wordy and each of its breaks are unallowable.)

^
Just take everything seriously.
I seldomly don't believe my entry is a "joke" entry, I just don't expect it to win.

The Color Pie 4
Legendary Artifact R
T: Add one mana of any color.
When The Color Pie dies, exile it and roll a six-sided die. You gain an ability until end of turn according to the result:
1 - You have "2W: Draw two cards."
2 - You have "U: Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn."
3 - You have "1B: Destroy target artifact."
4 - You have "1R: Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library."
5 - You have "G: Exile target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control."
6 - You have "3CCCCC: Search your library for a white card, a blue card, a black card, a red card and a green card and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library."

(I know it's stupid and way too wordy, but couldn't help myself.)

NEXT This won't win but: WotC has decided that black should do enchantment removal. Show me what that looks like at common.

I don't want a postmodern format yet, and am pretty happy with the state of things. I hope it's the speculative supplemental product change or a final abandonment of the Reserved List (and the latter is not probable, to say the least)