­Illumination + Swamp

Oh. So a bunch of multiverse cards that seemed to stretch the colour pie on the logic "If I can destroy it once it's out, I can counter it, right?" has already been officially printed. Didn't know that.

And.. colourshift it to black. (A clockwork black, no less) Which flat out is NOT allowed enchantment destruction. It gets a tiny bit of "Punish you for using artifacts" though, so that seems to be a direction to go in. Darkness already exists, as a Fog (one of the more sensible such uses for an obvious name, I guess) Illumination appears not to HAVE an antonym.

The obvious directions to go here are an enchantment that deals damage to casters of enchantments/artifacts; or a soft-counter that does the same unless they let you counter it. while the latter is closer to the source; it's stretching the pie a bit too much. I think we'll go with something reminiscent of Gloom (seriously, are all the good "It's dark, ok?" names taken?)

Fine, let's reference somethingawful and ask what the names for blue and green should be in this cycle? (Red being, obviously, taken.)

Also: Gosh. Gloom has never seen reprint. There are people out there who don't even know black and white hate each other!

Hey, hey, I like this card! I'm a big fan of black having to deal with artifacts and enchantments sideways, but it's tough to get something that does the job and feels fair. This looks very playable, but should only be really punishing if your opponent has three or more artifacts and enchantments to play after you played it. It attacks the play style, not the cards. Nice.

Floodination, Shadenation?

Incidentally, Illumination is probably fine anyway, because White gets countering as "secondary" in the modern pie.

It didn't in 1996 or so. This card and Withering Boon were really pushing the envelope back then. Nowadays, this is a bit old hat, it's true. Kind of surprised they never reprinted Illumination. Seems like the sort of card Wizards would like to remind people that it exists...

Does white really get countermagic as "secondary"? I'd have thought it'd be tertiary at best. Outside Planar Chaos, there's Lapse of Certainty, Illumination, and that's it.

­Gloom was reprinted as far as Fifth Edition. It's just that the mouseover image defaults to the oldest version once it's outside Standard. It always feels silly to mouseover Giant Growth and see the Alpha version, given that it was printed all the way to M11.

And yes, this card is very nice. It doesn't do very much against one or two spells, but it'd make some Enchantress or Metalcraft decks wince. Which is just right for a 2-mana uncommon hoser.

I was interested, so I did a quick check to see how the race is doing:

White: Illumination, Lapse of Certainty, Equinox oddly, Order of the Sacred Torch, Vigilant Martyr, Unyaro Griffin plus the Planar Chaos spells Dawn Charm, Rebuff the Wicked. The nature of being near blue gives some white permanents that counter but need blue mana to do it... Soulsworn Jury and Teferi's Care and Arenson's Aura. I wouldn't count them, but I figured I might as well be thorough.

Black: Death Grip, Stromgald Cabal, Thrull Wizard, Withering Boon. Planar Chaos: Dash Hopes. Dosesn't really count: Brine Shaman.

Red: Artifact Blast, Burnout, Goblin Artisans, Guttural Response, Mages' Contest, Molten Influence, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast.

Green: Avoid Fate, Guttural Response, Lifeforce. Also in green: Counter target ability with Bind, Brown Ouphe and Rust,

Colorless: Not of this World

A lot of these cards are old, admittedly, and were just seen as ways of dealing with problems in color against another color. Wizards just doesn't do that anymore... though a few of those cards still speaks to modern design, like how Guttural Response brings forth thoughts of Red Elemental Blast.

If you were to go by sheer numbers, White has 9 (7 if you don't count Planar Choas), Black has 4 (5 with Planar Chaos), Red has 8, and Green has 3 (6 if you count 'counter target ability'). Which color is secondary and which is tertiary? I'm not sure... but I guess white and red are in contention. That, of course, assumes that any color is secondary, and that the other color's forays into countering was 'an accident'.