MTG Salvation

Abuse this with Kaya or Venser - or Just fling Bolases at them?

In legacy you can do this:

Turn 1 - Land (+ ManaDork)
Turn 2 - Land - Neoform (if mana dork you can use Eldritch Evolution instead) + Vinedryad / Skyshroud Cutter --> Goblin Dark-Dwellers --> Neoform --> Sire of Insanity (if Evolution just skip right to Sire) + (you have room, I think to run Daze/FOW)

So a pretty consistent, turn 2 way to get a 7/5 and hellbent everyone.

Inspired by Echo, this mechanic is more like a delay kicker cost:

Resonant [Cost]: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay [Cost])

Any comments on the below cards or the mechanic itself are appreciated

Superstar Recruit 1W
Creature - Human Soldier (C)
Resonant 2W: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay 2W)
If Superstar Recruit Resonates, place two +1/+1 counters on it.
2/1

Broodsnake G
Creature - Snake (C)
Resonant 3G: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay 3G)
Deathtouch
If Broodsnake Resonates, create two 1/1 green snake creature tokens
1/1

Reflected Mirror Magician 3R
Creature - Human Wizard (C)
Resonant 2R: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay 2R)
When Reflected Mirror Magician enters the battlefield return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.
If Reflected Mirror Magician Resonates, return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.
2/2

Casualty Expert 2BB
Creature - Human Assassin (U)
Resonant 2B: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay 2B)
When Casualty Expert enters the battlefield creatures target player controls get -1/-1 until end of turn.
If Casualty Expert Resonates, creatures target player controls get -2/-2 until end of turn.
3/1

Oscillating Decapod 1U
Creature - Crab (U)
Resonant 1R: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay 1R)
Defender
If Oscillating Decapod Resonates, switch its power and toughness until end of turn and it has trample and may can attack as though it didn't have defender until end of turn
1/5

Angel of Censorship 3WW
Creature - Angel (R)
Resonant WU: (At the beginning of your upkeep, if this came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, you may pay WU)
Flying, Lifelink
Whenever Angel of Censorship deals damage to an opponent, search that player's library for up to two cards and exile them face up. Then that player shuffles their library.
If Angel of Censorship Resonates, players may not cast spells that share a name with a card exiled by Angel of Censorship.
3/4

Thanks - as you can guess from my "practicing" posts I'm trying to understand design. The next stage as it seems to me, and one that I am definitely not ready for, is to design within a set. That is why I am coming from judging/designing cards in isolation through analogy to previously printed cards instead of like you who is designing them in relation to the power level of the other cards you are designing. Thus, when looking at these cards I was trying to think of in terms of "most interesting" and "as powerful as I can get away with" instead of "would these play well in my set"

Just curious for the reason to make all of these "vanilla" instead of french vanilla or even using drawbacks like I proposed?

Slapdash Evolutionist 1UG
Creature - Human Wizard (U)
When Slapdash Evolutionist enters the battlefield you may have, until end of turn, target creature lose all abilities and become a blue Frog with base power and toughness 1/1.
When Slapdash Evolutionist dies you may exile target creature. That creature's controller creates a 3/3 green Frog Lizard creature token.
2/2

Edit - changed second ability to exile per Void's suggestion

The ETB and Dies trigger are both based on well known uncommon instants. Putting them on a creature makes them sorcery speed (for the 1st ability) and based on a condition (the 2nd ability) which makes them much less useful. I think combined that allows the mana cost/stats, as the abilities aren't all that useful.

Fabulist's Notebook 2
Artifact - (U)
When Fabulist's Notebook enters the battlefield reveal the top five cards of your library and separate them into two piles. An opponent chooses one of those piles. Exile the chosen pile, then put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order.
2, T: Place a card exiled by Fabulist's Notebook into your hand.

Complex, but I don't think it is powerful enough for a rare - I'm comparing it to Arcane Encyclopedia - this is both cheaper in cost and ability, but the cards drawn are limited and also curated by an opponent.

Bathed in Poison 2BB
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant Creature
Enchanted Creature has "Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player, destroy target creature that player controls."

This seems to be an alright uncommon ability through Throat Slitter. Cost probably should be similar to throat slitter itself, but a guess a bit of a discount since slitter had stats to itself and ninjistu which added a surprise element (and was cheaper)

Thank you for the help everyone!

Also - I feel like it would be annoying to post new threads of Commons practice so instead here are 3 new cards. I feel commons are really hard to be interesting and remain common so I'm sort of fascinated by their design.

High Peak Faller 3R
Creature - Giant (C)
When High Peak Faller enters the battlefield High Peak Faller deals 7 damage to target creature that was dealt damage this turn.
3/3

Secrets of the Sky 2U
Enchantment - Aura (C)
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has flying and "When this creature dies, draw a card".

Espionage Papers 1
Artifact (C)
Espionage Papers enters the battlefield tapped.
2, T, Sacrifice Espionage Papers: Target player reveals cards from the top of their library until they reveal a land card, then puts those cards into their graveyard.

I think there are two distinct ideas here.

One where you play the Mox for 0 but the activation is tied to a specific condition and your morbid mox fits the bill: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/custom-card-creation/811265-conditional-moxes

The second one where the Mox has no casting cost and needs to be played via an alternate casting cost of 0. And for this I would go with these keywords:
*Miracle: W
*Surge: U
*Madness: B
*Spectacle: R
*Emerge: G

But I find the first idea more intriguing to be honest.

Haunted Mirror (Rare)
4
Artifact Creature - Wall
0/4
Defender
Whenever Haunted Mirror blocks a creature alone, exile that creature until Haunted Mirror blocks another creature. (That creature returns under its owner's control.)
4: Target creature attacks you this turn if able. Haunted Mirror blocks that creature if able.

It think the complexity is low enough to allow for loose cycles even at common. iow, they don't have to be "samey".

If it's in all five colors (and depending on how many other mechanics are in the set), a typical ~250 card set could have upwards of 20 cards with Resonant and would probably want at least one horizontal cycle in common, uncommon, and rare (if not mythic) to ensure it has a notable ASFAN. A possible spread might look like:

Common: W, U, B, R, R, G, G

Uncommon: W, U, U, B, B, R, G

Rare: W, U, B, B, R, G

Mythic: W

In this spread, each color has four instances of the mechanic distributed throughout all four rarities. Of course, you could change them out as desired.
As a side note, I'd be wary of using off-color Resonant costs because it will lock you into a color pair set like Ravnica. That is unless, you want to do a full cycle of ten uncommons with off-color Resonant costs. The reason I say uncommon is because ten Resonators at common, while doable, would be unconventional but more importantly confusing to drafters. But were you to put a set of ten at uncommon, then you could design them as signposts, which alert drafters to and direct them towards draft strategies and archetypes.

EDIT: White doesn't exile from library. That's black's domain.