The Hawk is a fine card. It's also not just Rampant Growth. It's Rampant Growth plus 2 or more damage. Green's best ramp creatures for 2 are Gatecreeper Vine, Sylvan Ranger, Borderland Explorer. Expecting one single card to be excessively powerful just because white doesn't have tons of options is kind of silly. A 2/1 flier for 1W is on curve to begin with. Now it has to ramp nonbasic lands onto the battlefield every hit? Even green gets a single nonbasic land for 1G. Regardless of whether it's an overpowered card in a vacuum, it's probably the strongest repeatable ramp card in the game without the return to hand clause. It sounds even more absurd when you consider it's pounding away for 2 a turn while keeping up with top flight green ramp spells.
We had Naturalize with exile a card from a graveyard as an option in the last couple sets and Modern Horizons had a g/w hybrid one. It's been a while since Naturalize wasn't obsoleted.
If you put Chimeric Idol on top, it would stop being a creature at end of turn. If you put Chimeric Idol on the bottom, it's a moot point because only the stats of the top card matter anyway.
Companion is an optional ability that gives you a deckbuilding restriction in exchange for the ability to cast it once per game from outside the game. They can also just be normal cards in your deck with no restriction.
I just edited my post to cover that. Extended art cards aren't English exclusive. It's collector's boosters that are English and Japanese exclusive. There have been plenty of other promos with abnormal art that weren't just in English.
If Brazil has slow customs, it makes sense Wizards would ship earlier than normal to make sure product actually got there for the event. That isn't really evidence of fakeness. Given that they haven't been proven fake in this many days means they're almost certainly confirmed even if some people hate them. In all my years here, I don't remember a single instance of a picture looking this relatively clear and not being proven fake in this much time if it were. Infact, I don't remember a single instance of a fake with art no one could find. The cards seem reasonable they actually fit with every hint we have despite there being a large list of them, collector numbers of promos are always after the set now, reminder text is often left off of special versions of cards since reminder text is for inexperienced players not experts that track down special bling, etc. I haven't seen one single argument that actually makes me doubt the authenticity of the cards and a very large number of people screaming fake isn't an argument. Now, I would believe it's an intentional Wizards marketing "leak" just like War of the Spark where we happened to have the special Gideon version leaked instead of the normal art to not spoil the story. Obviously, if someone has 4+ booster boxes, they could have spoiled the normal version of the cards with reminder text if they wanted and, infact, the whole set, minus possibly a couple mythics. I'd totally believe the story of how the cards ended up leaking for Theros and Ikoria is a load of horse *****, but the cards are pretty close to confirmed as far as I can see. Cycling even fits very well with giant monster set since it lets you do something with giant dudes clogging up your hand. They did the same trick in Alara and if the set really is multicolor, it also helps smooth mana. It's also very hard to fake a foil card. I've had my hands on numerous very nice proxy cards and you can totally tell.
As far as only available in English, that isn't an argument. Collector's boosters are a special limited edition print run and Wizards has a minimum number of a card they're willing to make. This is literally packaged inside of every single booster box in the world since it's a box topper. This is also the first set with normal sized card box toppers other than a limited run Masters set. There is no precident for box toppers in normal boxes other than oversized core set cards they did years ago, so we could just as well assume that box toppers will be printed in the language of the booster box.
I think it's pretty clear mutate uses some kind of counter so you can track how many times the creature has mutated. It's probably also mutate only as a sorcery as well.
If these are just alternate art/name promos of cards in the set, it doesn't matter if they're staple cards. You don't have to have 4 Godzilla art cards to go play the Grand Prix. It's just a way to add a little extra fun to the game.
They have struck it down since it eats up too much design space.
Prowress doesn't eat up too much design space. It doesn't interact well with a lot of set themes. It makes you nerf cards rebound and jumpstart if you're going to use it a lot on limited cards. It needs lots of noncreature cards. It would get silly in limited with stuff like infect. It's also weird being an evergreen keyword that stacks. Lifelink and Deathtouch were changed to not stack. It also gives you multiple bonuses per spell if something like "Artifactfall" "cast an instant or sorcery", or Constellation is in the set.
As far as we can tell with merge, if, at any point, the merge creature that's become an aura stops being attached to a creature, it becomes a creature again. That's the same way bestow works. It just doesn't have the mandatory power/toughness bonus or making you choose while in hand whether you want the aura or want to skip it. This is a mechanic you can actually cost where you can use it before late game. It isn't that bestow wasn't neat when you could actually use it. The way it and merge work, you don't have the card disadvantage of auras. You can also merge repeatedly for only 1-3 mana. It's only sorcery speed, though, other than the aura mover card, so it isn't a combat trick and gives the "shields down" moment,though. It's actually a very well designed mechanic that I think people will really enjoy, if real. It isn't bestow. It's improved bestow that might actually let them print a constructed merge card or two. I think it looks really fun, kind of like bloodrush. It's a creature you can also use for something else, but like cycling, adventure, channel, or reinforce, you can actually use it reasonably because it isn't locked behind 6+ mana. It also fits with the trend of monstrosity improvement, channel that lets you have both at a reasonable cost (adventure), and flashback that can work on any card type (escape). I could actually see it existing along with mutate, especially if mutate is something like monstrosity but you can have a choice of keywords. This is black border host/augment set but without the card disadvantage and the design issues of a+b mechanic. It isn't that contraptions or host/augment weren't good ideas but this improves the latter and food improved the former.
As for designing a card that later saw print, I personally designed the exact card Murder only with a different name. An enemy ultimatum that's practically a ripoff of Violent Ultimatum isn't exactly the pinnacle of innovation. It's spicy and exciting but lets do the opposite of a card in the same cycle isn't going to surprise.
Kraken tentacle is actually slightly better gameplay except it might be stupid with the serpent in the theme booster.I don't think the idea of the card was massive horde of unblockable 1/1s when the card gives you an unblockable 6/6 for 6. Its supposed to be strong but that's practically game over when it lands or the next turn. You want powerful cards, but that's not really going to have much interaction. Unblockable is neat when you might have one other big sea monster, though.
Honestly I'm going to have to say good gameplay trumps flavor. Everything people have proposed is significantly worse gameplay just like how the logical amass mechanic would be insane in planeswalker.set Magic is a card game first and this is a card that's powerful and fun even if the flavor is a bit weird.Eldrain had the queen who's off as well but mechanically plays beautifully with devotion as does the cycle and the hybrid cards. Honestly, what's the point of spot on flavor if it's going to be seen once and head straight to the garbage box/collector binder?
Card rarity is based on limited power level, constructed relevance, and niche/staple. I don't remember it ever having anything to do solely with flavor. Now, some flavor things do naturally lend themselves to a rarity.
As far as only available in English, that isn't an argument. Collector's boosters are a special limited edition print run and Wizards has a minimum number of a card they're willing to make. This is literally packaged inside of every single booster box in the world since it's a box topper. This is also the first set with normal sized card box toppers other than a limited run Masters set. There is no precident for box toppers in normal boxes other than oversized core set cards they did years ago, so we could just as well assume that box toppers will be printed in the language of the booster box.
Prowress doesn't eat up too much design space. It doesn't interact well with a lot of set themes. It makes you nerf cards rebound and jumpstart if you're going to use it a lot on limited cards. It needs lots of noncreature cards. It would get silly in limited with stuff like infect. It's also weird being an evergreen keyword that stacks. Lifelink and Deathtouch were changed to not stack. It also gives you multiple bonuses per spell if something like "Artifactfall" "cast an instant or sorcery", or Constellation is in the set.
As for designing a card that later saw print, I personally designed the exact card Murder only with a different name. An enemy ultimatum that's practically a ripoff of Violent Ultimatum isn't exactly the pinnacle of innovation. It's spicy and exciting but lets do the opposite of a card in the same cycle isn't going to surprise.