So here's an opportunity. In the overall structure of the block story, I've got these Izzet-born planes walkers named Fezzit and Dyble. They'll get their own Planeswalker card, but that's not what I want help concepting right now.

The role Fezzit and Dyble play is that of the outside observer. Specifically, they're the ones with the best actual view of all the politics and machinations surrounding Debronia and the Soradyne Corporation. They see a lot, more than any of those in te middle of it, but they don't ever actually let on. To them, it's all one hell of an entertaining show.

So here's the challenge: I want a card that reflects the name “Random Observation”. It will be a blue and red instant or sorcery. It will be an uncommon, and it will not tie directly to any pre-existing "faction" in the set. It just needs to be an interesting effect that relates to the idea of noticing something at a seemingly unrelated juncture.

Throw 'em at me.

Well, it has to be random in some way. I think "Choose a (blank) at random. If (blank), do (blank)."

Draw a card, then reveal a player at random's hand. If that player has two cards with the same name in their hand, draw a card.

Return all non-land permanents to their owner's hands. You may play this spell only when there is exactly one creature, one enchantment and one artifact in play.

Name a card type. Players cannot cast spells of that type until a spell of another type is cast. (Okay, admittedly, that last one was really a blue/white enchantment. Ignore it, and it will go away.)

Shuffle your library, then reveal the top three cards of your library. If the combined converted mana costs of those cards is odd, put them in your hand. If the combined CMC is even...

I don't have an effect worked out for the last part.

Random Observation
­
Instant
Each player reveals a card from his or her hand at random. If the revealed card is a creature, ~ deals 4 damage to that player. Otherwise that player draws two cards.

Reveal the top card of target player's library. If it's a creature card, draw cards equal to that card's power and ~ deals damage to that player equal to that card's toughness.

(Only really any good if you're deck-stacking; not that great a commentary on the scientific method ;) )

Wow, everyone does default to thinking "red and blue" translates into "damage and/or draw cards", doesn't it?

How about something more along the lines of Odds // Ends:

Each player reveals the top five cards of his or her library, and casts an instant or sorcery card from among them if able. Then put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of their owners' libraries.

Might be more suitable for rare than uncommon, sadly.

I like where Houlding started going with each player revealing something. I each player reveals their top card, you still get a game of even/odd combined CMC. I like this as a device simply because it's too many variables to accurately manipulate, and it leaves the opportunity for someone to actually say, "well, that's odd". Still, what to do with that?

@ Alex - I think part of why "damage + card draw" arises so much is that a lot of the other, outside-the-box, solutions often appear overly complex.

I tried hard, so hard, to think of a concise "observational" concept that avoided such typical effects, but I just kept spiraling out into essay-length puzzle cards.

Given that randomness should be part of the mechanic of this card, maybe it should be bumped to Rare. It opens up the possibility of doing more weird stuff-something in F&D's bailiwick-as well as being more appropriate to where random effect tend to reside.

Misuse of the word "target". Targets are chosen on announcement. It might be interesting to have a version of this where targets are chosen by both players, so someone can use Cremate or whatever in response. Alternatively, just remove the last "target" from what you've got now. I just wanted to note that with just one instant or sorcery in the yard, the coin flip would feel silly. But as someone who's played Surreal Memoir, this looks fine.

Exile a card at random from a player's hand. For the rest of the game, you may cast that card from exile. You may cast ~ only in response to an opponent's spell.

I think this would actually be templated like so:

Flip a coin. If you win the flip, return target instant or sorcery from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise target opponent chooses an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard and you return that to your hand instead. Draw a card.

Having the opponent make the call is largely irrelevant, though if you want an opponent to still do so, I think you just have to make them flip the coin. But that's weird, considering that no matter the result, the player who casts (((Random Memory))) is still the beneficiary.

You're right, the most interesting aspect of the card was generally irrelevant in a practical sense. New concept...

I think this one has "stupid fun" written all over it.

Slight template changes:

"Choose a player at random. That player returns an instant or sorcery card at random from their graveyard to their hand. Then you return an instant or sorcery card at random from your graveyard to your hand."

(Scrambleverse and the above Surreal Memoir define proper template.)