Probably not a good place for this, in red.

It certainly seems somewhat out-of-pie. Unless the set's making a deliberate decision to do things this way, like I did in Sienira's Facets on cards like Borderland Lithosaur.

It's mainly just that: a) I require some red elves b) I've run out of space in green for landsearch (Also it was a nifty quote)

I think it's interesting comparing this card to Lithosaur. I'd have problems with Lithosaur as well, but, since it's doing something different, I have a harder time pinning down why it's 'wrong'. This, though, is an exact color-shift of a green card. Perhaps you can find a way to make this mechanic feel more red?

Edit: Oh, hey, I just noticed the words 'non-basic'. Weird. Worse in limited, and incredibly good in constructed. Weird. You know, I think a number of people still think that Sylvan Scrying is one of the best land search cards out there. This gives it an extra +1/+1.

I was looking for something to differentiate it from all the usual landsearch; and yeah, the problem is allowing it to get any non-basic rather than "The non-basics in this set" pushes it into "way too good" territory.

Ideas welcomed for what a red mana elf can be. Red get's... um. ONE landcycling card, and two cards that as a drawback let opponents search for land. So yeah, really REALLY shouldn't colour shift here.

Random ideas for common red mana fixing:

• Tap for
• Get mountains only
• Mana production tied to attacking
• Efficient mana filtering
• Give a one-off mana boost (eg. "when this dies, untap up to three lands", although that may be too combo-riffic for common)
• Land-filtering, eg. "when this enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice/discard a land. If you do, search for a ???? land"

I thought the "when this dies" trigger might be enough to differentiate it.

I wanted to avoid just tapping for the appropriate colour; not least because of the existence of the myr, but sometimes simple is best I guess.

I think the existing version could be colour-bled into red, but I think it'd be better if there were a more red simple iconic mana elf. But if nothing else seems to work, I'd be ok with this, even though it's not what red usually does.

­Viridian Emissary is what this is closest to (well, and Sylvan Scrying).

­Wild Cantor and Priest of Urabrask suggest another approach. Generally within modern design sensibilities, red should give oneoff mana boosts rather than repeated ones (where "get a land" counts as repeated because you can then tap that land every turn). If you're okay with making it a oneoff effect, it would be fine by modern standards.

But I'm guessing that you really want it to interact with lands. To do that, perhaps you might have to do something like:

­, Sacrifice a land: Add one mana to your mana pool [of any colour / of any colour the sacrificed land could produce].

­: Search your library for a land card, put that card into your graveyard, and shuffle your library. Add one mana to your mana pool of any colour that land could produce.

I was a little afraid that by asking to color change this, we'd start sacrificing things. I like the "red sacs it's stuff" angle, but, sometimes, you just want a card to give you value.

I would also be hesitant to make this a "color filter to red" thing, since, to me, that feels like a very black ability. I do think Alex's second tap suggestion is rather neat, though I have no proper way of linking this thought to my previous sentence. ;)

Ah, all I can think of, right now, is the obviously rare ability of ", Tap all untapped lands you control: Add red mana to your mana pool equal to double the amount of lands tapped in this manner. Lands you control do not untap next turn."

I do miss Sisters of the Flame...

Wel,l Iron Myr mostly trumped them.

I guess "When ~ dies add to your mana pool" would be fine; except it's liely to be added at wholly the wrong time.

Was "When ~ dies, dig for a non-basic land"

Getting a free Pyretic Ritual when you dump this into the graveyard (from hand, ie. Faithless Looting) is quite nutty. Would prolly break all storm decks all the way from modern to vintage. I don't know if it's a concern for the environment in question you have in mind here.

"If Elven Explorer would go to the graveyard from anywhere but the battlefield, exile it."?

A pity that's so clunky. I wouldn't mind seeing a few creatures play fair like this.

Fixable by making it sorcery speed only?

I doubt that matters, to be honest.

I think, for now; I'll leave it as is. Sure, it's bold - but you only have four of it available; and you do have to jump through some hoops to get that extra mana.
My reason for not wanting to prevent it working if it gets milled is that I was introducing a small mill theme into the set as a way to get lands into graveyards. And this then becomes a nice little trap against that strategy.