Channel is another possibility for the "mana fixing or multicolor card that can be played as mono" slot. (See also Loretower Guard, Senate Jurist.)

I'd like to make the channel effects somewhat more useful than the Shinen from Saviors of Kamigawa, which means the channel cost would need to be higher.

Evoke and Channel don't fit flavorfully with non-Spirit, non-Elemental creatures.

For me, that is.

Well... Channel might be okay, but while I like evoke, I can't reconcile the flavor.

We talked at one point about having all Aerans have activated abilities which cost only colorless mana. Do we want to keep that true?

What do you like about the idea? I can see a bit of flavour to it (the Aer are hard to get on your side, but take care of everything when they are), but it seems like it usually won't make much difference in play, since you'll usually need multi mana to cast them anyway.

If we have evoke or channel, it seems like the obvious choice is to have them have mono activations. (I'm not sure which of those sort of abilities I like, but I agree it makes sense to use them as a way to have a card that can be used multi or mono.)

I think we could flavour Channel to work pretty well, if we remember that "creature cards" are summoning spells to summon this creature to come to your aid on the battlefield. So these cards give you the alternative of channelling some of the creature's nature to help you, without fully summoning them. There are plenty of Ghits for "channelling Obama", say.

That's why I changed my mind.

I've always been a bit confused by Channel and Kicker. They feel like natural things you could do with a card, not worthy of a keyword. Not that I think they're bad... far from it. It's just more of a... 'peeve'. After all, Faerie Macabre didn't bother mentioning Channel.

Anyhow, ignore my grumbling. Channel seems like a good idea. With Aer collapsing all around, we could reenvision it as acts of desperation if we wanted.