Alex shouts at me when I print cantrip creatures this cheap, even when they're smaller, and blue.

So I'll look at you, all sad puppy-eyes, when you print them big and green.

Yowsers. Er, yeah, Elvish Visionary says hello.

Heh. The funny thing is, Elvish Visionary is already a 4 out of 5 stars card. But that's partially because it's an elf and really helps feed into Elfball style decks. With "Humans Matters" in Innistrad, though, I get the impression that this would make quite the splash.

If by 'quite a splash' you mean 'invalidate almost every other 2-drop', yes.

Nah. Tarmogoyf is still a better card. What's he going for nowadays? Looks like Starcitygames has him at $99... ;)

Of course this would make a splash. So would printing a 1-mana vanilla 3/3. Doesn't mean it's a good idea :P The most recent comparable to this is Silvergill Adept, and that's got the drawback worth at least 1 mana. So this is too strong.

Tarm at least is sometimes nothing more than a 0/1, and it takes a bit of effort to make him 2/3. This is always 2/2 and draws a card... I mean, sure, I'd run both if I could but I'm not sure tarm is always better. Just almost always.

Sorry, guys. You're arguing with a person who wishes we could go back to making Gray Ogre cool again. My tongue is planted very firmly in my cheek, but I seem to have gotten people's goats to get up, walk around and jump a few fences. Though, I admit, the feedback is probably very useful to SFletcher. I don't what kind of decks he builds, but he's probably looking at this from an aggro point of view, and assuming that the card is passable. As a control card, though, this thing would kick the snot out of Wall of Blossoms. Or Borderland Ranger for that matter. Both cards which have seen heavy tournament play.

­Gray Ogre was the poster child for "Rarity is a broken concept". But yeah, given I'm even thinking of comparing the naturalist positively with tarm suggests that maybe it's a bit too good.

Actually, it was simply an oversight. I’d carried a similar card over from the first Soradyne Labs list and forgot to bump up the cost when I changed the ability. I wanted a card that, in a set with Morph, still made sure that green got a 2/2 vanilla for 3 mana that trumped the generic 2/2 vanillas for 3 that every color got.

Ah, that makes sense :)

This is still rather easier to cast than Wistful Selkie; I suspect dev might recost it to . But at least we're not massively controversial now.

Interesting to make the comparison to Wistful Selkie; while I didn’t work on Eventide, I know that we discussed “color density” in Shadowmoor design — that is, the notion that since hybrid allowed us to cost things with HHH (or CCC) casting costs more than any other mechanic had, we ought to try it. The “Chroma” theme played that angle further, and even rewarded players for playing cards like the Selkie in a mono-colored deck.

In Soradyne Laboratories, the Morph mechanic is going to allow (and even ask for) slightly more flexibility in color mixes than in a typical set. Pushing for more color density than is totally necessary goes against that grain. Additionally, putting too many “CC” casting costs – especially low ones – in common slots creates bottlenecks in limited. For this environment, a cost is most likely the right way to go.

I think this is completely acceptable as is, as Sean's right to be concerned with how to best differentiate between Morph-Bears and Legit Bears.

That said, thinking about the flavor of a "naturalist" and the environment it's in got me thinking about a Citanul Woodreaders morph variant, or at a higher rarity, something like Regal Force.

Soradyne Naturalist
­
Creature - Human Wizard (C)
Morph
When Soradyne Naturalist is turned face up, draw two cards.
2/3

It may seem odd to have something like a Fathom Seer in green, but there's obviously a huge difference in functionality between a "free" morph and one that isn't. And I think this would be a hugely appealing pick in limited for green, as Elvish Warrior is a great trump in the early game against opposing morphs, but the added versatility of being able to get that "layaway" Woodreader effect would really push it up in the pick order.

And just a note on the flavor, I was thinking that as a Naturalist the idea of the morph bonus is to show how this creature learns from living as morph; a regular Jane Goodall of magic cards.

I actually like a lot about this proposed design. I’ll keep it in mind as I shape out the rest of the green commons.

Flavor note though- I’m using Morph in this set as a way to express relative anonymity in a city-sized crowd. The MorphBears are less “six-legged clay dorks” or even “bears” as they are just “that guy over there”. These morphs are the people you walk past without knowing who or what they are. Maybe he’s a dentist walking to lunch. Maybe he’s a contract killer scoping out a mark. There are a lot of vanilla faces in the crowd, and you just never know.

Which is to say, I like that the naturalist may just look like ”some dude” until you find out he’s actually a scientist of sorts. The angle that he’s learning something from his time as a MorphBear is a little off, but I think this is all semantics.