I'm supposed to be designing a gold card for Melvin with a new keyword. This is not it, but it did come from my brainstorming.

I'm having real trouble for this because I don't really understand Melvin, or have good examples in my mind of cards that Melvins like. I know that Firemaw Kavu is one, and I think that Mystic Speculation is. Does anyone else have good examples?

Hmm. I think Ancient Den is one. And so isn't Pestilent Kathari. I'm not sure, but I think the idea behind Melvin is that he's that little voice in your head that pops up and says "Oh. That makes sense." That's why Melvin likes numbers that match... he likes patterns.

That being the case, I'd also say that Melvin is the main instigator for card cycles. I can understand why Vorthos would be big into White Knight vs. Black Knight... but a cycle of cantrips across 5 colors that have no other link between them all? That has Melvin written all over it.

That being said, is this card supposed to be double striking against opponents, or just making players lose life as a form of damage dealt... I could see you intending either one.

Mystic Speculation and Firemaw Kavu are MaRo's examples of Melvin cards. I think I'd prefer some others... though I'm not sure quite what I'd suggest either.

I would agree that cards in cycles are a very Melvin thing; that's why it's hard to find an individual hard that's particularly Melvin. I pretty much agree with jmg, e.g. on Ancient Den: it just works precisely the way it ought to, as a land with all the traits of an artifact as well.

Perhaps Huntmaster of the Fells with all its 2s? Or Sprout Swarm, because the two keywords mesh so spectacularly well, despite their years-separated initial releases.? (Similarly Ichor Slick or Blast from the Past.) Dreamstone Hedron as a precisely tripled Mind Stone? Maybe Unyaro Bees, as an almost precise reprint of Killer Bees that casts Unyaro Bee Sting.

Perhaps Priest of Urabrask, actually. All the pieces fit together nicely: it's a precise colourshift of Priest of Gix, but fast mana has shifted out of black into red; and where old Phyrexia was monoblack, New Phyrexia is five-colour.

Oh, I know: Obelisk of Alara. The 1C activations, the numbers 1-5, clockwise around the colour wheel; ideally it'd be white 1 up to green 5 rather than blue 1 up to white 5, but nonetheless it's pretty pleasing.

Thanks for the suggestions. For whatever reason, I just don't get Melvin/Melva. He/she is very hard to design for, even if I get the appeal of cards that he/she likes.

Siphon is supposed to be a fusion of trample and double strike, though I can see that people would get confused.

I agree with the examples posted so far.

In fact, I feel designers often design Melvin-friendly things without meaning to, because Melvin pays attention to the mechanics, and designers are naturally looking for new ways to use mechanics.

For instance, I think "lets use wither on a sorcery" is a Melvin thing, because it doesn't especially make more flavour sense than just spelling out the different options, but there's an inner voice that says "woohoo! that was such a clever way to use the rules". And similarly, most "lets staple these keywords together", eg. possibly even creatures with double strike and "whenever this creature deals damage".

Plus stuff like "rearrange any number of target spells on the stack" :)

Thinking about this card again, I think siphon would be a good keyword only if it were a bit less fiddly, but that sort of caring about the difference between damage and life gain, etc, is the right idea.