Strike from the Sky UG
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may have target creature you control with flying lose flying until end of turn. If you do, it fights target creature without flying.
I've also been thinking recently about how the meta shift from UR to UB Delver dominance might make UG Turbofog a bit more competitive. A lesser chance of running into Spellstutter Sprite is a huge boon, IMHO. Also, UB Delver has more black removal that can't go to your face ala Lightning Bolt.
Plus, if they want to cycle through their Thought Scours, they have to mill themselves. On one hand, you're feeding they're Delve with your milling, but on the other hand UB Delver can already mostly assume it can cast all the Gurmag Anglers it can draw.
I vote uncommon. I'd reserve uncommon more for workhorse staples that can fit into many different archetypes, and rare for cards that are either very splashy or require a whole deck to be built around them. But that's just my philosophy.
Letting a Storm/Eggs deck run 24 copies of Manamorphose )assuming this is a complete cycle) could get very problematic.
A realistic example turn in a Pauper deck:
Turn 1: Vault of Whispers, Disciple of the Vault.
Turn 2: Another artifact land, crack egg, crack egg, crack egg, drop a Lotus Petal you've drawn into, crack egg, crack egg, crack egg, drop another Lotus Petal, sac both Lotus Petals to Thoughtcast to get past terminals, crack egg, crack egg, get another Lotus Petal and Drafna's Restoration eventually, etc...
Feel free to add in any component you think will improve the game. Storm counters, Prowess counters, etc are common examples of this.
In my Mairsil the Pretender deck, I have a custom "Caged" card to indicate which cards are in that status. For Pauper decks with Sprout Swarm, I find it best to use two cards pushed together with 4 pools on them..."Untapped, Summoning Sickness" - "Tapped, Summoning Sickness" - "Untapped, No Summoning sickness" - "Tapped, No Summoning Sickness"...and push some green wood cubes salvaged from board game components between those states.
Feel free to bring some red dice distinct from your other counter trackers to serve as damage reminders when the board state is really complex.
I think a real key component, which hasn't been mentioned, is how well either version fits in with the other cards around it.
If the deck is full of other old-frame cards, and has an old school feel, then Alpha all the way. One of my favorite decks is an all old-frame Ramses Overdark deck.
On the other hand, if the deck is full of newer cards like stuff from the Commander pre-cons, and has other foils, then I'd go with the Masterpiece version.
You can't just consider the card by itself, because the aesthetics is made up by the whole deck together. It's about how well the card blends with everything else on your board. Foils are nice, but when only a single card is foil, it feels off to me.
Yeah, threaten effects that do something to the taken creature afterwards are pretty rare overall, outside of stuff like Slave of Bolas.
Should Double Threaten have its CMC increased to 6? The card would straight-up end games, and, unlike Overrun, having a board state is optional.
I did want to be careful with it, because it can be one heck of a limited bomb. Hence the RRR in the casting cost, making it a real choice as to whether a limited deck can support it. On the other hand, it does depend on your opponent's board state...if it's just taking 2/2s, or if there's no board stall for it to smash through anyway, it's a lot less impactful.
I was just thinking about the amount of unexplored design space in the game. For example, these are a bunch of Threaten variants I'm surprised haven't been printed yet. Maybe some of them have, since I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of recent sets.
Threaten Bounce 2UR
Sorcery
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste until end of turn. At end of turn, return it to it's owner's hand.
Threaten Freeze 1UR
Sorcery
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste until end of turn. That creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
Threaten Shock 3R
Sorcery
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste until end of turn. At end of turn, it deals 2 damage to itself.
Double Threaten 2RRR
Sorcery
Untap up to two target creatures and gain control of them until end of turn. Those creatures gain haste until end of turn.
Enfranchised players will become overly bored at some point if they continue the status quo. Maybe they should go back to Basic, Advanced and Expert level formats or something of the sort to get some of this stuff in besides just Un Sets and Commander.
Enfranchised players might be bored of Standard, but I think they can just be satisfied with other more high-complexity formats like Commander, Cube, Legacy, and Pauper (yeah, I think even Pauper is more complex than Standard).
IMHO, there's a massive amount of untapped design space. If you look at any custom Magic board, you'll see tons of creative and fresh designs. We could have plenty more blocks like Time Spiral. The thing is just that WotC is very conservative about using it up quickly, because they're pacing the game on a trajectory to last another 25+ years.
For example, one mechanic I'm using in a game design of my own that is Magic-like: There's a bunch of cards that are like Split cards, but are permanents, with a Pure/Corrupt side. When you play either side, a global variable get's set to that side, Pure or Corrupt, and this global variable determines the status of all the Pure/Corrupt cards in play...so it's even affecting the cards of other players.
So you can have one card that has a 1 CMC Pure side and 3 CMC Corrupt side, then another with a 2 CMC Pure side and 2 CMC Corrupt side...play the first one as Pure, then the 2nd one as Corrupt causing all cards to be Corrupt and get value. You can build your deck around wanting to have the world be a certain state, as well as metagaming against those decks with lots of even Pure/Corrupt CMC cards just to control the global variable.
It adds a whole new aspect to the game, as well as a whole new "faction" to align yourself with in deckbuilding, without adding much components to the game (just a doublesided Pure/Corrupt card you flip over).
WotC could add mechanics like this, revisit Phasing but actually make it aggressively costed, have lands with Channel abilities, add new card types, maybe something like Vanguard abilities, a 2nd deck like Contraptions in Unstable, all kinds of big things that would really break out new design space.
But they don't want to, because they want to spend novelty very slowly and conservatively.
There is still design space; For example in alternative win conditions (not life, not mill). But I doubt they have the guts to do it.
We've literally just had a new alternate wincon card spoiled for RNA. We currently have 22 alternate wincon cards, three alternate wincons in silver-border, and a new one coming out next set.
I think what he's talking about is adding an entire new win-condition to the game, not just a single card. Poison or milling, for example, which aren't just a single card but a huge amount of cards to support that specific strategy.
Just as a top-of-the-head example, lets say a player loses the game if they own 30 or more cards in exile.
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may have target creature you control with flying lose flying until end of turn. If you do, it fights target creature without flying.
Next
Celestial Mandate
Falsify
Rain Dance
Plus, if they want to cycle through their Thought Scours, they have to mill themselves. On one hand, you're feeding they're Delve with your milling, but on the other hand UB Delver can already mostly assume it can cast all the Gurmag Anglers it can draw.
Also Precedent: Terrain Generator. Feels a bit like Ghost Town, too.
Sorcery
Target opponent discards two cards. For each land card discarded this way, add BB.
Letting a Storm/Eggs deck run 24 copies of Manamorphose )assuming this is a complete cycle) could get very problematic.
A realistic example turn in a Pauper deck:
Turn 1: Vault of Whispers, Disciple of the Vault.
Turn 2: Another artifact land, crack egg, crack egg, crack egg, drop a Lotus Petal you've drawn into, crack egg, crack egg, crack egg, drop another Lotus Petal, sac both Lotus Petals to Thoughtcast to get past terminals, crack egg, crack egg, get another Lotus Petal and Drafna's Restoration eventually, etc...
"Whenever X would die, instead, put it into your library 2nd (or 3rd) from the top."
I think that captures the "slowly regrowing" ability."
Another precursor would be Wayward Soul.
Competitive EDH: Pay in, prize pay-out based on winning.
Casual EDH: Pay in, prize pay-out based on players voting for coolest deck/best sport (you can't vote for yourself).
In my Mairsil the Pretender deck, I have a custom "Caged" card to indicate which cards are in that status. For Pauper decks with Sprout Swarm, I find it best to use two cards pushed together with 4 pools on them..."Untapped, Summoning Sickness" - "Tapped, Summoning Sickness" - "Untapped, No Summoning sickness" - "Tapped, No Summoning Sickness"...and push some green wood cubes salvaged from board game components between those states.
Feel free to bring some red dice distinct from your other counter trackers to serve as damage reminders when the board state is really complex.
If the deck is full of other old-frame cards, and has an old school feel, then Alpha all the way. One of my favorite decks is an all old-frame Ramses Overdark deck.
On the other hand, if the deck is full of newer cards like stuff from the Commander pre-cons, and has other foils, then I'd go with the Masterpiece version.
You can't just consider the card by itself, because the aesthetics is made up by the whole deck together. It's about how well the card blends with everything else on your board. Foils are nice, but when only a single card is foil, it feels off to me.
I did want to be careful with it, because it can be one heck of a limited bomb. Hence the RRR in the casting cost, making it a real choice as to whether a limited deck can support it. On the other hand, it does depend on your opponent's board state...if it's just taking 2/2s, or if there's no board stall for it to smash through anyway, it's a lot less impactful.
Threaten Bounce
2UR
Sorcery
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste until end of turn. At end of turn, return it to it's owner's hand.
Threaten Freeze
1UR
Sorcery
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste until end of turn. That creature doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
Threaten Shock
3R
Sorcery
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste until end of turn. At end of turn, it deals 2 damage to itself.
Double Threaten
2RRR
Sorcery
Untap up to two target creatures and gain control of them until end of turn. Those creatures gain haste until end of turn.
Enfranchised players might be bored of Standard, but I think they can just be satisfied with other more high-complexity formats like Commander, Cube, Legacy, and Pauper (yeah, I think even Pauper is more complex than Standard).
For example, one mechanic I'm using in a game design of my own that is Magic-like: There's a bunch of cards that are like Split cards, but are permanents, with a Pure/Corrupt side. When you play either side, a global variable get's set to that side, Pure or Corrupt, and this global variable determines the status of all the Pure/Corrupt cards in play...so it's even affecting the cards of other players.
So you can have one card that has a 1 CMC Pure side and 3 CMC Corrupt side, then another with a 2 CMC Pure side and 2 CMC Corrupt side...play the first one as Pure, then the 2nd one as Corrupt causing all cards to be Corrupt and get value. You can build your deck around wanting to have the world be a certain state, as well as metagaming against those decks with lots of even Pure/Corrupt CMC cards just to control the global variable.
It adds a whole new aspect to the game, as well as a whole new "faction" to align yourself with in deckbuilding, without adding much components to the game (just a doublesided Pure/Corrupt card you flip over).
WotC could add mechanics like this, revisit Phasing but actually make it aggressively costed, have lands with Channel abilities, add new card types, maybe something like Vanguard abilities, a 2nd deck like Contraptions in Unstable, all kinds of big things that would really break out new design space.
But they don't want to, because they want to spend novelty very slowly and conservatively.
I think what he's talking about is adding an entire new win-condition to the game, not just a single card. Poison or milling, for example, which aren't just a single card but a huge amount of cards to support that specific strategy.
Just as a top-of-the-head example, lets say a player loses the game if they own 30 or more cards in exile.