I'm calling it now: Recover, from Coldsnap. Here's my reasoning:
Being centered in B, there's a good chance that Sultai's mechanic will be graveyard-based, as the only other wedge that specifically cares about the graveyard is WBG. Azban, however, is centered in W, whose relationship with the graveyard is light at best (artifact/enchantment recurrence, the occasional rare weenie reanimation spell).
Maro is all about reusing mechanics that still have design space, and there's a LOT left in Recover (only 7 cards actually exist with the keyword).
Recover is perfectly suited to BUG: G and B are the go-to colors for interacting with graveyard creatures, and U is the go-to color for interacting with graveyard spells. All of these colors have a long history of sorceries that return cards from the graveyard to the hand, while W and Rdon't do it nearly as much.
Sultai's theme is "ruthlessness of the dragon," which ties in super well with all the weenie sacrificing that playing Recover encourages
Because I want it to be the mechanic -- Recover seems like it could lead to some really interesting choices and plays, while Delve strikes me as one-dimensional, swingy, and kind of dull
This strikes me as an interesting effect for design enthusiasts, but not a particularly good thing for any format -- its most reliably use, and thus the most common context you'd see it in, would be in burn lists that just want Lightning Bolt 5-8. For this reason, I don't think restricting it to your own spells would help very much.
One fix could be trying a version reading, "Copy target instant or sorcery spell that targets a permanent." -- or alternatively, "target instant or sorcery spell with no targets." These are pretty restrictive, but they prevent a lot of the more obvious abuses while still giving Johnnies some room to play around. You could even consider adding back support for triggered and activated abilities.
One thing to keep in mind is that the -1 is a lot less risky for the controller than most Planeswalker minus abilities, as it will often deny the opponent the ability to take advantage of the easier-to-kill planeswalker (because they don't get their combat step). As it stands, I feel like unless players have burn or a Hero's Downfall effect, dropping Shyft more or less guarantees a few -1 activations, which results in some really crazy tempo advantage. I'd either change the ability to -2, or just bump the whole 'walker up to 3UU
Wizards' strategy with event decks in the past has been to try making a tier 2 or 3 deck which doesn't feature the format's chase cards, so that the product can go to folks actually trying to enter the format. I think that ideally, the list would be entirely composed of cards that aren't particularly sought-after, but which can still be powerful in the right build.
You aren't going to see Tarmogoyfs, and you aren't going to see a GP-winning list; you're going to see a decklist that won't perform hugely well in a tournament, but one which might suffer a softer fate than a raw stack of 75 put together by a newbie.
tl;dr: The Modern Event Deck is a jumping-off point, not a source of cheap format staples. If you're already playing Modern, you're not in Wizards' target audience.
This is a super cool mechanic, but I don't think counters are the way to go. What about giving the opponent some sort of permanent? It would be hard to reflavor, but at least that way they'd be able to interact with the bleeding ability (without having to run parasitic cards that care about bleeding counters).
I can understand the argument for Red getting the effect, but the fact is, most creatures don't have flying; for example, out of 111 creatures in M14, 84 (or ~75%) are non-flying. In essence, then, this would be a mono-red kill spell with the scope of Doom blade (assuming equal creature distribution in all colors, Blade hits ~80%), which I don't think is warranted. Red has other ways of dealing with creatures, and anyway, it's not like it philosophically has anything against non-fliers the same way green does against flyers.
EDIT: Whoops. While I was writing this, it looks like y'all moved on to multicolor, which I can totally get behind.
As far as I know, the current design philosophy is that target restrictions don't have to follow the color pie, as long as the core effect is within that color. For instance, in an AMA Response to whether a mono-black card could have the effect "Destroy target artifact creature," mark said that even though black can't deal with artifacts (and certainly has nothing against them philosophically), the effect was still strictly a subset of Murder, and so it could see print as long as it had the right flavor.
In this case, then, I'd say that this should be black; just flavor it as the bite of a ground-locked snake, or the effect of some poison weed that people step on.
I don't think we should be expecting it any time soon. On his Future Sight podcast, Maro rated all the new mechanics from 1 to 3, with a 1 meaning that it's return was virtually guaranteed once they found a good spot for it, and 3 meaning that the mechanic would never, ever return. Fateseal was a 3; Maro said that it was basically the most unfun effect in the game.
I like both of these a lot! The balance actually seems pretty spot-on, too. Just a bit of advice for the formatting of Zenera's +2, though. It currently reads,
"Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of any nonland permanent on the battlefield. You cannot choose a permanent that shares a name with a token you control."
But you could simplify that all to,
"Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of a permanent that does not share a name with a token you control"
I took the liberty of taking out the "Nonland" requirement, because I don't quite see why you need that. The name restriction makes the ability a lot more interesting, though, and I think the forced variety will actually make it more fun to play with.
So I have some open questions, which I see as mostly concrete and answerable. Over the course of this year, a number of states in the USA have been passing or at least debating legislation which limits the window of time in which a woman can legally perform an abortion. Similar legislation is being primed at the Federal level. Interestingly enough, one common motif among these bills is their shared target limit: 20 weeks after conception. My questions are as such:
Do you think this target window of 20 weeks has good scientific basis, or do you think it is essentially a made-up number?
Which structures or properties in a developing human being would you use to define whether it can be ethically aborted?
Is our knowledge of embryonic development specific enough that we can safely define a time limit that would prevent fetuses with the listed properties from being aborted?
Do you think science has enough voice in the debate over abortion?
Anyway, let's have a good discussion, and not be needlessly unpleasant to people we don't agree with.
It's interesting that these all use death triggers; is it your intention for decks which utilize Prime to be sacrificing/destroying their own permanents often? And if so, do you plan on making sac outlets available across the pie, or only in the B and R, the colors that traditionally have them at common?
As for the individual designs, though, I like these a lot. The auras create a really neat subgame, and I think playing with them will make games a lot more interesting. Ripple in the Nexus, however, feels very un-blue, as it makes a fatty that's above the curve with or without Prime enabled. I'd also make Brain Barber discard and not exile, just to separate it from the WB design precedent and push the power level down just a little bit. Finally, I'm conflicted on whether Read the bones should draw 1 card or 2. As it is right now, it's a pretty damn powerful, but maybe you could nerf it a little bit by limiting what it can return to just permanent cards.
Heartboiler Mage3RR
Creature -- Human Shaman (R)
Haste
:symtap:: Put a rage counter on target creature. As long as that creature has a rage counter on it, it is red, becomes 5/5, loses all abilities, and gains, "this creature attacks each turn if able." Once upon a time, these men were all tethered, by their wealth, by their families, or by their own suffocating meekness. I have broken those chains, and now their only want in the world is the joy of pounding blood. (5/2)
Thought of this guy while I was on a walk. What do you think? I'm more interested in players using his ability on their opponent's creatures than I am their own; is 5/5 a good place to be? Also, is the effect justifiably mono-red? Flavor-wise, the intention is that his effect simply raises the passions of the target without literally transforming its body.
Also, a bonus Tibalt:
Tibalt, Agony's Advocate1RR
Planeswalker -- Tibalt (M) (+2): Put a 2/2 red devil creature token onto the battlefield unless target opponent has Tibalt deal 3 damage to him or her ( -2): Target player gets an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, this emblem deals 1 damage to you" ( -9): Target player's life total becomes 1. That player sacrifices all but 1 land, then repeats this process(?) for artifacts and creatures
Starting Loyalty: (2)
One fix could be trying a version reading, "Copy target instant or sorcery spell that targets a permanent." -- or alternatively, "target instant or sorcery spell with no targets." These are pretty restrictive, but they prevent a lot of the more obvious abuses while still giving Johnnies some room to play around. You could even consider adding back support for triggered and activated abilities.
You aren't going to see Tarmogoyfs, and you aren't going to see a GP-winning list; you're going to see a decklist that won't perform hugely well in a tournament, but one which might suffer a softer fate than a raw stack of 75 put together by a newbie.
tl;dr: The Modern Event Deck is a jumping-off point, not a source of cheap format staples. If you're already playing Modern, you're not in Wizards' target audience.
"She may call herself Kiora, but I believe she is Thassa"
EDIT: Whoops. While I was writing this, it looks like y'all moved on to multicolor, which I can totally get behind.
In this case, then, I'd say that this should be black; just flavor it as the bite of a ground-locked snake, or the effect of some poison weed that people step on.
But you could simplify that all to,
I took the liberty of taking out the "Nonland" requirement, because I don't quite see why you need that. The name restriction makes the ability a lot more interesting, though, and I think the forced variety will actually make it more fun to play with.
Do you think this target window of 20 weeks has good scientific basis, or do you think it is essentially a made-up number?
Which structures or properties in a developing human being would you use to define whether it can be ethically aborted?
Is our knowledge of embryonic development specific enough that we can safely define a time limit that would prevent fetuses with the listed properties from being aborted?
Do you think science has enough voice in the debate over abortion?
Anyway, let's have a good discussion, and not be needlessly unpleasant to people we don't agree with.
As for the individual designs, though, I like these a lot. The auras create a really neat subgame, and I think playing with them will make games a lot more interesting. Ripple in the Nexus, however, feels very un-blue, as it makes a fatty that's above the curve with or without Prime enabled. I'd also make Brain Barber discard and not exile, just to separate it from the WB design precedent and push the power level down just a little bit. Finally, I'm conflicted on whether Read the bones should draw 1 card or 2. As it is right now, it's a pretty damn powerful, but maybe you could nerf it a little bit by limiting what it can return to just permanent cards.
Creature -- Human Shaman (R)
Haste
:symtap:: Put a rage counter on target creature. As long as that creature has a rage counter on it, it is red, becomes 5/5, loses all abilities, and gains, "this creature attacks each turn if able."
Once upon a time, these men were all tethered, by their wealth, by their families, or by their own suffocating meekness. I have broken those chains, and now their only want in the world is the joy of pounding blood.
(5/2)
Thought of this guy while I was on a walk. What do you think? I'm more interested in players using his ability on their opponent's creatures than I am their own; is 5/5 a good place to be? Also, is the effect justifiably mono-red? Flavor-wise, the intention is that his effect simply raises the passions of the target without literally transforming its body.
Also, a bonus Tibalt:
Tibalt, Agony's Advocate 1RR
Planeswalker -- Tibalt (M)
(+2): Put a 2/2 red devil creature token onto the battlefield unless target opponent has Tibalt deal 3 damage to him or her
( -2): Target player gets an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, this emblem deals 1 damage to you"
( -9): Target player's life total becomes 1. That player sacrifices all but 1 land, then repeats this process(?) for artifacts and creatures
Starting Loyalty: (2)