If a 9/9 with doublestrike is blocked or blocking a 6/5 with deathtouch. The 6/5 will die in firststrike damage step. So it won't deal damage to the 9/9.
OK, thats a combo. But without haste or this being an instant I don't think its that big a deal. More than enough moving parts that it shouldn't be an oppressive combo.
OK, first, "their opponent" doesn't work because multi-player. "An opponent" works but there's no reason to punish you with the card. Making an infinite loop against manaless players is bad. There are two options. Make it sacrifice nonland permanent or change it to discard a card if they can't pay.
This is really complicated as the exact wording is impossible in the rules because creatures don't die from these effects. This is one work around.
All creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn. For each creature whose toughness this effect would reduce to 0. That creature's controller puts a stun counter on a land they control.
If I understand correctly, you want to bounce the Ronin during combat so it's not sacrificed to a mainphase 2 small pox. Also, you want to gain value if it died in combat. First, this needs to be two seperate abilities. The weird restriction on dying to damage is complicated and messy.
Lone Ronin R
Legendary Creature - Samurai
Haste
At the end of combat, return Lone Ronin to its owner's hand.
When Lone Ronin dies, create a treasure.
While I like the sand pit it doesn't seem like the type of card to he printed. The likelihood of this blowing up in a players face is too high for a normal card.
Trading Mage would be a great addition to the TMage family.
I'd never seen the rules text "when chaos ensues" before but it's my new favorite rules text. While I like the design. Personally I'd trim some effects to lower he cost. 5MV is asking quite a lot.
Your wording is a little off. Bazaar of Irregularities should read
Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast a creature spell, and when that creature enters the battlefield, suspect it. (look at Cavern of Souls and Barbed Servitor)
Underworld Trades should be
At the beginning of your end step, if one or more suspected creatures you control dealt damage to your opponents this turn, for each of those opponents, you may pay 1 life. If you do, draw a card and create a tapped treasure token, then that player investigates.
A neat design but probably too strong. Adding any color for creatures and colorless is excessive. The other effects are gravy on top.
Forbidden History, I love the flavor of this. However, it's too strong. Either it needs to increase in mana cost or trigger only once a turn.
Weight of Expectation, another flavor win. I love cards like this with a negative and beneficial effect that you can build your deck to take advantage of.
Trailer Trader, not quite the homerun the others are but another interesting effect.
When you run out of cards in your hand. You don't have cards in your hand anymore. That's all. Nothing about the game changes. Outside of card abilities that cause you to draw cards you only draw the one card a turn.
Most abilities that require a sacrifice require it as part of the cost. The paying of costs can't be responded to. So it's impossible for player to use an enchantment to exile the sacrificed creature as it has long since been sacrificed. Costs come before the ":" on an ability. Everything on the right of the : is a cost everything on the left is the ability.
Permanents already reference "if this was cast" in a number of ways. Tracking over multiple turns how it was cast is a memory issue but not acorn. Spells with X in their cost. It's being referenced on the stack where X has a value. Could it be clearer? Possibly, but not a rules problem so not acorn.
To be as clear as possible. I have not checked all 6500 instant and sorcery but every one I have checked functions with the proposed rules text. Based on this I don't believe there are any that don't work. Are there some that are fairly pointless? Yes, but they function.
The legitimate problems you bring up are reasons not to print the card. Not reasons for it to be acorn. Pointless but functional text is not a reason to be acorn. Memory issues aren't a reason to be acorn.
Design technology has developed significantly since evoke was done. Without bestow I wouldn't imagine this would work.
The simple fact that a card like Scooch doesn't work in black border should be enough demonstration that just because something makes sense doesn't mean its completely doable under the hood of the game, but here's the Drive To Work Reference (2:30ish) - he explains bot Exchange of Words and Far Out right at the beginning, so the distinctions are pretty clear. Its a good cast in general since it covers a lot of the reasons why cards were or weren't doable.
Not trying to be purposefully dense. But I've looked under the hood and used actual rules text based on existing cards to write the ability. The only iffy part is the "starts with" which would require clarification in the rules but it's a simple change that's obvious to all audiences.
As with Scooch and nearly every other acorn card. There is some part that when pointed out its obvious why it has to be acorn. Scooch wants to be cast mid-resolution of other spells or abilities otherwise it can't affect die rolls. That's obviously acorn territory. No part of the rules text I wrote ventures into obviously acorn territory no matter how much I look. If you can't find any fault either it seems rather absurd to call it acorn.
Cleave is a little different because the ability is built into the specific card being “edited” so that the individual cards work both with and without the text being removed. Same as how all Overload cards are written specifically so that the target/each replacement works, but granting Overload to a card like lightning bolt would result in “Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any each.”
The specific bit I was referencing though was maro talking either in his article or podcast about why Exchange of Words was able to be black bordered when he thought it wouldn’t. The rules manager told him that because the whole text box was being copied and pasted to the other creature, it was fine.
OK, that's not a rules issue but a specific ability issue. Randomly changing words in a card's text can be disastrous if not planned ahead. However, adding a trigger condition to the start of a spell ability doesn't seem to cause any problems. The ability as I wrote it functions fine in black boarder.
If you can find any problems I'll willingly concede the point.
As for Kiki combo, I don't see a problem with a four mana card sacrificing a 6 mana card to win the game. There are easier combos in existence.
All creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn. For each creature whose toughness this effect would reduce to 0. That creature's controller puts a stun counter on a land they control.
Lone Ronin R
Legendary Creature - Samurai
Haste
At the end of combat, return Lone Ronin to its owner's hand.
When Lone Ronin dies, create a treasure.
Trading Mage would be a great addition to the TMage family.
I'd never seen the rules text "when chaos ensues" before but it's my new favorite rules text. While I like the design. Personally I'd trim some effects to lower he cost. 5MV is asking quite a lot.
Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast a creature spell, and when that creature enters the battlefield, suspect it. (look at Cavern of Souls and Barbed Servitor)
Underworld Trades should be
At the beginning of your end step, if one or more suspected creatures you control dealt damage to your opponents this turn, for each of those opponents, you may pay 1 life. If you do, draw a card and create a tapped treasure token, then that player investigates.
A neat design but probably too strong. Adding any color for creatures and colorless is excessive. The other effects are gravy on top.
Weight of Expectation, another flavor win. I love cards like this with a negative and beneficial effect that you can build your deck to take advantage of.
Trailer Trader, not quite the homerun the others are but another interesting effect.
Let's say the cards in question are Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Bartered Cow, Murder, Stasis Snare
Opponent cast Murder on your Ayli.
You respond by activating Ayli's ability to sacrifice Bartered Cow.
There is no cow on the board so the opponent can cast Sasis Snare but it has to target something other than the Cow.
The Cow's ability resolves, then Ayli's ability resolves, and then Murder resolves.
To be as clear as possible. I have not checked all 6500 instant and sorcery but every one I have checked functions with the proposed rules text. Based on this I don't believe there are any that don't work. Are there some that are fairly pointless? Yes, but they function.
The legitimate problems you bring up are reasons not to print the card. Not reasons for it to be acorn. Pointless but functional text is not a reason to be acorn. Memory issues aren't a reason to be acorn.
Design technology has developed significantly since evoke was done. Without bestow I wouldn't imagine this would work.
As with Scooch and nearly every other acorn card. There is some part that when pointed out its obvious why it has to be acorn. Scooch wants to be cast mid-resolution of other spells or abilities otherwise it can't affect die rolls. That's obviously acorn territory. No part of the rules text I wrote ventures into obviously acorn territory no matter how much I look. If you can't find any fault either it seems rather absurd to call it acorn.
If you can find any problems I'll willingly concede the point.