Wow. Imperiosaur World. Back to Basics but even harsher. Would be a terrifyingly good sideboard card in Constructed.

I was originally going to make it rare, but I felt that with a CMC of 5 any deck that could quickly put this out in the block would get screwed over by it. Outside of my Jyhelm block, yeah this could get real nasty.

Seems odd that this is green. You can get this out on round three off of Lanowar Elves, but those elves become 1/1 dorks afterwards. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw this on a white enchantment instead.

Ack, didn't notice Back to Basics. That probably makes my land version illegal.

And hmm. Red got Blood Moon to semi cripple non-basics. I'm not sure where else in the colour pie this stuff lives. I note this doesn't say anything about, eg. upkeep costs; which would make it snow-blue.

And yeah, this seems to be a cripple-green card. So it is odd to see it in gren rather than an enemy colour. But since green has creatures that do it already for themselves; it's probably as sensible here as anywhere.

Actually, if you dig hard enough for them, you'll find red either destroying non-basic lands, or dealing damage to players because they have non-basic lands. Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon seem to be odd exceptions to red's take. Green also punishes non-basic lands however with Dryad Sophisticate, Primal Order and, woah... haven't seen Hidden Herd in a while. Also two creatures that get bigger. It's just odd that this happens to hit the creatures too. Not bad-odd... I'd prefer to see something that hasn't happened before. It's just in a "could be anywhere in the color pie 'cause it hasn't happened yet odd." I'd say multi-color would take best advantage of it, except, this card really wants to be in a mono deck. Maybe Hybrid?

Well I'm ruling out black for hybrid, but I feel A split between white and blue, leaning towards white a little more. Though green hasn't punished non-basic lands as such before I still feel it shouldne green, as green gets lad the quickest.

Fair enough. I think Back to Basics is more accident then precedent. Even the name feels wrong on a blue card. When has blue ever wanted to simplify things?

I think punishing non-basics could go in any colour: several colours have done it a bit, often in a way that sort of makes sense in their colour (destruction, not untapping, etc). Philosophically I think "I DON'T UNDERSTAND IT, SMASH IT QUICK" is most red, but I can see philosophical reasons for any of the other colours to do it.

(I agree simplicity is less blue's thing, but knowledge can simplify things: eg. the periodic table is simpler than memorising each individual element's properties.)

I think it's fine wherever it plays best and/or the philosophy or flavour fits best shrug

Red and black hose nonbasics most, primarily through destruction. Green gets it next by boosting its creatures. White and blue don't really get that much hate for nonbasic mana. This could really go in any color, but I think red and black are the best choices.

­Imperiosaur makes an argument that it could go in green, especially if it gave your creatures +1/+1 or some other boost. Then you could use Llanowar Elves to get it out turn three, at which point they become vanilla 2/2s. That could actually work, if the flavor makes sense.

Upped the rarity with the power up.

Thinking about it, I agree it's not really blue.

It can work in green though. Ok, it doesn't work with Llanowar Elves, but it works well with Arbor Elf and Rampant Growth. And it seems 1/3 of top-tier constructed decks don't run ANY basic land, and 1/3 run about half, so it could even be main-deckable if it were playable outside of the block.