Hmm... I kind of thought a cycle of Frontier Guides would be cool, but once I filtered it through the needs of my set, it didn't feel as appetizing. Hybrid makes me want a red and a black ability... which would make this guy look a lot more like guildmages, and I'm sure we'll be seeing 10 of those guys soon. I could make 5 Legendary mono-colored creatures all casting their own spell... which sounds kind of cool, but those guys wouldn't feel as legendary in the end. I'm going to need to sit on this...

I like this card by itself. It can either act as removal or as pump, depending on who you use it on.

I don't have a problem with the mechanic, that's fine. Though it now occurs to me that this ties even closer to the 'witch' cycle in Shadowmoor. You know, like Mistmeadow Witch... except those cards used two colored mana in the activation, which makes heaps of sense.

I guess my problem, right now, is that I'm trying to use similar design space, but get a card that feels very different. I'm pretty sure that's possible, but it's probably going to require some thinking.

Note that Rakdos Guildmage charged you an extra "discard a card" for its -2/-2 ability. This will be an absolute removal house, like Hatchet Bully but more sustainable.

It's true. There's something about removal on a creature that makes the ability cost more than normal abilities. Fun, and not power balance, I would assume, is the real reason.

Like I said, though, this card isn't sticking. I'm only keeping it in the file to remind me to make something with this space.

I think it's just that repeatable removal in general needs to cost a hefty amount. Pinging for 1 is okay on a 3-drop be it creature (Cunning Sparkmage, Prodigal Pyromancer etc etc) or enchantment (Honden of Infinite Rage). But doing any more than that has always been really expensive to repeat, and rightfully so. Contrast Viridian Longbow with Heavy Arbalest, Prodigal Sorcerer with Reveka, Wizard Savant, ­Honden of Infinite Rage with Blood Rites.

1-toughness creatures are meant to be vulnerable, but if you're dealing 2 per turn you're going to be quite reliably eliminating a rather large proportion of Magic's creatures. It makes perfect sense to me that you'd need to add some additional cost in resources (cards as in Rakdos Guildmage, creatures as in Tarflinger / Hatchet Bully / Blood Rites, etc).