MTG Salvation

After the signups close, you will be given 15 restrictions (plus one later in the month). Every round, you will eliminate 3 of your restrictions to use that round (4 in the finals). You will design three cards that meet your chosen restrictions and post them in the round thread. Eliminated restrictions may not be used in future rounds.

At the end of the round, players will be assigned into random pairings. A public poll will determine the winner in each pairing, and the victor will proceed to the next round. This is repeated until we have a winner.

Balefire
Fleshbind Ghoul has some great flavor and balance. To me, a mirrorcoat should change the target, not copy it. And the demon is kinda puny for being a seven drop, even with his potentially painful ETB trigger.

Gerrard's Mom
Winged Tyrant would be weak against token generator decks, which is a great "restriction" on its trigger. Down // Out is an odd duck. Was it your intention to use the transmute to search for an 8 CMC card? Bellows Elemental deceptively powerful, as it is primed for an 8 damage Fling if it survives combat.

A close match for me due to skill from both competitors, but Gerrard's Mom gets the nod.

Icarael
Revelation is ridiculous with all the reveal clauses these days. Especially with Revelation (I see what you did there). Curse of Three Fathoms is undercosted and should be Mythic. It makes JtMS look like an underachiever, but, being a classic Blue ******* Player, I like the concept. The Flowstone Curse should also be Uncommon.

Sir Aureus
Nekatha Woods is... troublesome. The only other card I can think of that lets you search for it in your library is unique. Plus, it lets you do some hand repair without a true mulligan. Traumatic Specter is more damaging to your opponents being revealed from your hand or library than on the battlefield.

Another tough call, but Icarael's flavor and concerns with Sir Aureus' Specter give it to Icarael.

Prophylaxis
Lawful Banisher is a great utility card, either for allowing one of your creatures to survive an upcoming board wipe, or temporarily getting a problem creature out of the way. Manifest: Elemental Living Weapon variant for Auras. And I'll overlook the obvious editing error. It's a Homarid... I guess. Having so few, it's hard to classify what makes a Homarid. But it reminds me of the original, so it works.

Link
I love Blue, but this is a bit ridiculous. I think Shimmerweave Isle would end up in Eternal formats, especially for High Tide decks (Rewinds for :symu::symu:, anyone?). And being able to run eight Sapphire Medallions is way past overkill.

Even with the typo, Prophylaxis performed better in my eyes.

Eventide Sojourner
Arcane Blackmail: 5 or 6 CMC? 6, to be on the safe side. And the Bolas flavor text fits so well. Also, for anyone in the current CCL, that is my idea of a "choice" card. If I don't see something similar to Change of Plans in RTR, I'll be shocked. Sure, we all hate seeing certain people hit the board, but outside of Bounteous Kirin, I don't think I've ever seen self lifegain from spells.

pstmdrn
You used two restrictions I was saving for Round 5 (cycle; three types). Grrr. Grrr, I say.

The ghoul is solid and would fit right in on Jund. The weird's trigger is only moderately effective as a shroud analog, but it's very good with things like Giant Growth. The demon looks pretty balanced and reasonably flavorful.

The dragon is very strong but its strength also makes it a little vulnerable. Down // Out seems ok, although unconditional hard counters these days almost always have UU in their cost somewhere. The elemental is pretty neat.

Curse of Subjugation seems very overcosted compared to, say, Ghostly Prison. Curse of Three Fathoms is unprintably powerful -- it's like a one-sided Call to the Grave that can hit any nonland permanent and lets you choose the permanent to hit. Curse of Blinding Rage is a bit dangerous for a common. It does a lot of what Curse of Death's Hold does but for a lot cheaper and much easier to draft in multiples.

Revelation is an interesting ability, but I'm not sure it's at its best on these cards.

Nekatha Woods: A pun on "neck of the woods." This is meant to be part of a horizontal cycle of lands at uncommon, with possibly a rare or mythic land that shares the ability but does something a little different. I am aware that Homeland is a big game-changer and perhaps it could use a little higher cost (three cards shuffled instead of two, maybe), but then game-changers is what this game is about.

Quickthistle: Somewhat comparable to Shambling Shell. On one hand, it works better as a combat trick, at least the first time, and it takes less mana and fewer cards milled to build up counters on another creature. On the other hand, it can't serve as a body and a potential source of +1/+1 counters at the same time.

Traumatic Specter: Comparable in power level to Hypnotic Specter: it loses a point of toughness and the randomness of the discard, but gains a secondary effect. Some rules notes below.
- "Becomes revealed" and "look at" have specific meanings in the game rules; while the MTG tournament rules permit a player to reveal any cards visible only to him or her at any time, doing so will not cause the specter to trigger.
- Almost every existing card that can cause a player to choose a card with particular characteristics from an opponents hand will have that opponent reveal his or her hand first. The one existing exception is Vendilion Clique. In this case, the opponent who tried to look at your hand may not choose any cards other than the specter if you reveal it, because the characteristics of the other cards in your hand are undefined — they are neither land nor nonland. If the effect just tells the opponent to look at your hand and then choose a card from it without any constraints on the card's characteristics, he or she can choose any of the cards in your hand, not just the specter.

Lawful Banisher is playable and balanced and its function fits its flavor well. Holy Augury has a bit of a typo but is otherwise solid. Homarid Deceiver is much more grokkable than Homarid and quite a bit more playable as well.

The challenge was "One card has two or more phyrexian mana as a cost to activate an abilty." Bloodspinner's power level is pretty dangerous and there is pretty much no reason to ever pay U on its ability rather than 2 life. Shimmerweave Isle is less dangerous but may require playtesting. Sapphire Familiar is more fair than Sapphire Medallion but I would make it a 1/1 rather than a 2/1 to make it a bit less of a no-brainer.

Arcane Blackmail could cost quite a bit less, considering your opponent gets the choice of whether to sacrifice permanents or let you counter the spell. Compare to Dash Hopes and Perplex. Change of Plans is interesting and probably pretty fair -- you can mess with your opopnent's plans or you can draw new cards for yourself in a pinch. Spell Refraction is fine, but not very playable; but then, cards that do nothing but gain you life rarely are.

I'm not buying the "mutant illusion" creature type, and yes, I'm aware of Mistform Mutant. I wouldn't really call this much of a vertical cycle. They're all illusions and they all can draw you cards in some way but otherwise they have very little to do with each other. They're all playable and balanced, but not a great fit for the restrictions you chose.