For Challenge # 075 and based on Sakashima the Impostor. The cost is pretty damn high, but I wasn't sure how to cost Spitting Image with buyback. 8? 7 is probably reasonable, too, but I don't know.

Also that [+3] has nothing to do with Sakashima, but the card is wordy, and I wanted to be as simple as I could get. You're already paying 8 here, so two cards seems fine. As an alternative, it could also say "Creatures named 'Sakashima the Imposter' gain flying." But I wasn't sure how much I should heavy hand that. There's a lot of space to work with here with creatures of the same name... pity there's only so much space on the card.

You should probably cut one of the loyalty abilities. The ultimate needs to be reworded, but I honestly don't know how to fix it.

I don't think it really works with the etb and two abilities, one of them being an ultimate. I mean, the +3 isn't the important part of this card... except it's how you gain loyalty counters. Without it, there's no way to get to the ultimate. I'd say "Perhaps the Ultimate can be pulled", but who makes planeswalkers without an ultimate? I suppose the -4 can be pulled... but then the etb doesn't seem very interesting to me, and the whole card stops being Sakashima.

I don't think you're wrong, Link... I just think the correct response to this card's mess is "Stop. Make a different card."

Can you turn the ETB into a + ability?

It's kinda sorta on both the first two abilities. Though 8 mana for clone as a sorcery is a bit ott, I guess it's the source material.

I'd suggest, instead, the +3 be "Clone a creature" the -4 be "Return this to hand, draw 2 cards" and I do like the ultimate be "That planeswalker there? I clone his ultimate."

I think the bounce rather loses its point if you remove the ETB. But I think it'd be fine to have Rite of Replication (or Cackling Counterpart) as a middle ability on a much cheaper planeswalker (5 mana or so).

Maybe the ultimate could read "~ gains all abilities of target planeswalker. You may activate one of those abilities this turn without paying its loyalty cost."

Ah yes. Cackling counterpart means that clone token costs 3 nowadays. Dropping to 7-cost. Also, I'm trying out Link's suggestion, since I think it reads friendlier to people who've played Magic for a while.

I do agree that making the etb a [+} ability makes for a stronger card... but I prefer cards that stretch boundaries. I guess the ultimate does that, though. Let me put it another way: I think this is the card I'd submit to development, and let them argue it out. I think if I was on development, however, and you showed me this card, I'd probably remove the etb. Strange, that. ­

I would note that Spitting Image already has retrace, which is in some ways better than buyback.

If you want to negate the power of counterspells, or you're trying to achieve threshold, perhaps. But "Buyback " is much stronger than retrace, otherwise. I got to admit, though, that this card isn't really buyback. It can still be shot down with a Shock in response to the ability... that's a pretty big loophole.

I guess my reaction to this is more "developer" than "designer", then.

I'm up for stretching boundaries with planeswalker effects that really can't be done any other way, such as qqzm's Teferi, Planeswalker. But this is trying to use an ETB trigger along with the -2 to enable a repeated effect, and, well, planeswalkers are already good at repeated effects.