I'm still hoping for a 3CMC dragon in red. Dragon Egg simply does not cut it, leaving a distinct hole at 3CMC for tribal dragons. If Crucible of Fire is going to be used effectively, the dragons need to be hasty or be on the 'field before it.
Not all of the choice cards directly point to Khans vs Dragons, the sieges directly say that they are a choice between Khans and Dragons, and Crux of Fate is literally the event that decided the course of the history of Tarkir,so I'd say it's deserving of the special mark. Mob Rule doesn't even have a dragon in its art, it's just part of the greater theme of choice cards.
Another Modal Dragon1RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying, haste
Saunter 2RR(You may cast this spell for its saunter cost. If you do, it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
4/4
This satisfies your insistence that portions of card text do not override portions of keyword rules text, but it results in a keyword that has substantially less utility than the Dash keyword, essentially demanding that the creature has another ability to support the Saunter keyword, be it haste, flash, or an ETB effect.
I would say that these two keywords are too similar to each other, but one (Dash) is more functional than the other in a larger number of circumstances, thus rendering he other pointless. Why would I design a new keyword with very narrow possible applications when I can use an existing one? Though honestly, many of Wizards' own keywords and mechanics could be rolled into Kicker with little to no functional changes.
And I wasn't really trying to design a card for cube, I was trying to demonstrate a situation in which Dash and Haste could coexist with both modes making functional sense, which I will acknowledge is very, very narrow.
Again, this card would be no different if you replaced Dash with a keyword that bounced the creature to your hand at EOT without the haste aspect that Dash provides. Combining haste with Dash makes the Dash aspect unflavorful. Build your own keyword for cards of this ilk, because it's not a Dash effect.
But if I were designing a card that has this effect in a set that already has the Dash keyword, why would I cook up an entirely new keyword just to accomplish this effect for this one card? There's no reason dash can't be used this way. Yes, if I were designing a modal creature like that in a vacuum, It'd be more elegant to do it a different way, but real cards are never designed in a vacuum, they fit into a set and use mechanics and themes from that set, even if it may not be the most mechanically optimal to do so.
Ugin's design as a western-style dragon in an otherwise eastern-themed world and the obvious similarity to Bolas can only be deliberate on the part of Wizards. I think that they are trying to point us to the conclusion that Ugin is an Elder Dragon. Remember that the five Elder Dragon cards do not necessarily mean that there were no more than five Elder Dragons surviving after the Dragon Wars, and the Dragon Wars were said to have taken place across multiple planes AND the surviving Elder Dragons went on to sire all the lesser dragons. If Ugin is an Elder Dragon and he calls Tarkir home, then perhaps he is the progenitor of all of the dragons of Tarkir, and thus returning him to life would be integral to restoring the dragons of the plane. Of course, then there would be two Elder Dragon Planeswalkers on the loose, machinating against each other, there's currently too many ongoing major threats to the multiverse for my taste, some of them need to get resolved before they toss in more.
As far as I know, we don't know why Nicol Bolas wanted to release the Eldrazi. Bolas has a huge amount of influence over Sarkhan's mind, and I feel could easily have compelled him not to return to Tarkir, and thus not encounter the spirit of Ugin, which suggests that Bolas has some nefarious scheme in mind.
Also, if Bolas killed Ugin, when did that happen? Bolas may have changed his attitude towards Ugin in the meantime, especially given the Mending, maybe he wants Ugin and the Tarkirian dragons to be alive again. Ugin's nexus suggests that Ugin has some sort of time power, maybe Bolas wants to use that power for himself.
Seems more like a sorting error than a packing error, meaning that the machine thought it was doing what it was supposed to be doing, but there was an error in its instructions. If it was a problem with the machine-readable code on the cards, I would expect to see it occur in a distinct pattern, rather than erratically.
So, on a lark I went to look up Garruk Relentless.
It seems that the rulings on double-image cards (the Innistrad transform cards and the Kamigawa flip cards) alternate dark-gray and white, but the white ones are very hard to read because the text is still light gray. It it an issue on my end, or does everyone see it?
Time Spiral was their big chance to bring out all the old characters that had never gotten cards, if a character predates Time Spiral and didn't show up in that block, then there has to be a good reason for them to bring that character out of cold storage, like they did with Nicol Bolas.
General Varchild, Ashnod, Tawnos, Glacian, Rebbec, O-Kagachi...
And, of course, the numerous old planeswalkers, some of whom participated in Time Spiral, and could have received cards the way Teferi did.
Commodore Guff, Bo Levar, Freyalise, Tevesh Szat, Leshrac, Serra, Feroz, Lord Windgrace...
Recently though, I was disappointed that Thraxes didn't get a card.
Skithiryx doesn't beat Baneslayer, but he does virtually force her into a defensive role. She can attack freely past him, but he kills faster than she does, and can haste in for a surprise hit. The threat of Skithiryx might put people into a more conservative playstyle with their Baneslayers.
I love him for other reasons. I collect dragons, I love black, I've liked the poison concept since Mirage (Sabertooth Cobra was one of my first cards), oh I want him...
Creature - Dragon
Flying, haste
Saunter 2RR(You may cast this spell for its saunter cost. If you do, it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
4/4
This satisfies your insistence that portions of card text do not override portions of keyword rules text, but it results in a keyword that has substantially less utility than the Dash keyword, essentially demanding that the creature has another ability to support the Saunter keyword, be it haste, flash, or an ETB effect.
I would say that these two keywords are too similar to each other, but one (Dash) is more functional than the other in a larger number of circumstances, thus rendering he other pointless. Why would I design a new keyword with very narrow possible applications when I can use an existing one? Though honestly, many of Wizards' own keywords and mechanics could be rolled into Kicker with little to no functional changes.
And I wasn't really trying to design a card for cube, I was trying to demonstrate a situation in which Dash and Haste could coexist with both modes making functional sense, which I will acknowledge is very, very narrow.
But if I were designing a card that has this effect in a set that already has the Dash keyword, why would I cook up an entirely new keyword just to accomplish this effect for this one card? There's no reason dash can't be used this way. Yes, if I were designing a modal creature like that in a vacuum, It'd be more elegant to do it a different way, but real cards are never designed in a vacuum, they fit into a set and use mechanics and themes from that set, even if it may not be the most mechanically optimal to do so.
Dashwing Dragon1RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying, haste
Dash 2RR
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice Dashwing Dragon.
4/4
Thus using the dash nets you an Archwing Dragon, while casting normally nets you a Hell's Thunder.
Also, if Bolas killed Ugin, when did that happen? Bolas may have changed his attitude towards Ugin in the meantime, especially given the Mending, maybe he wants Ugin and the Tarkirian dragons to be alive again. Ugin's nexus suggests that Ugin has some sort of time power, maybe Bolas wants to use that power for himself.
It seems that the rulings on double-image cards (the Innistrad transform cards and the Kamigawa flip cards) alternate dark-gray and white, but the white ones are very hard to read because the text is still light gray. It it an issue on my end, or does everyone see it?
General Varchild, Ashnod, Tawnos, Glacian, Rebbec, O-Kagachi...
And, of course, the numerous old planeswalkers, some of whom participated in Time Spiral, and could have received cards the way Teferi did.
Commodore Guff, Bo Levar, Freyalise, Tevesh Szat, Leshrac, Serra, Feroz, Lord Windgrace...
Recently though, I was disappointed that Thraxes didn't get a card.
I love him for other reasons. I collect dragons, I love black, I've liked the poison concept since Mirage (Sabertooth Cobra was one of my first cards), oh I want him...