For Challenge # 081. Rhystic seemed like a good place to go with one of these cards. If it didn't take up so much space, I'd say putting one rhystic-like ability on every third charm makes sense... but that whole "unless a player" part digs into your other abilities, as I saw here. I dug my heels in with this one, and gave Alexi the second half of Withdraw.

But the other two abilites were shorted to make up for it. Originally, I planned to make Alexi give a creature a Hexproof until end of turn, similar to Alexi's Cloak. But countering anything that hit any creature is fun, restrictive enough, shorter, and also matches the cloak (I used to play it, but don't remember ever played it on my own creature. It always shot down an aura or growth effect. Odd matchups.)

Meanwhile, the last ability used to be:

"Look at the top four cards of your library. You may put any number of lands in your graveyard, and the rest back on top of your library in any order."

In keeping with the 'lands going to my graveyard are relevant' thingy. This card wouldn't use the land, like the other two cards did, but would set up other cards that did use lands in graveyard. The ability was long, though, and I had to cut back to this odd tutor (and probably a better ability in the exchange).

Given that sacrificing a land gets you a 2 mana effect (as seen on Crash and Thunderclap vs the then-standard Shatter and Incinerate), my first reaction is to say that a full Unsummon isn't too strong. But this approach is fine too.

Love the reference to Alexi's Cloak. I always had a soft spot for that card (er, on my own creatures).

We'll nudge her up to . It's tough to figure out sometimes what the cost of a land is. Crash and Thunderclap don't make very good examples, since you could always cast them... and players often did.

I'm guessing the abilities are closer to + or -. The fact that this is modal, means I'm hovering around 3 1cc spells, sometimes better, sometimes worse. It's tricky. There seems to be a perfect time to cast these spells - right when you hit the top of your curve, and you tap out for your big gun. If the effect works well with that timing (for example: Target creature gets +3/+0 and Haste) then it needs to be toned down a little. If it works poorly with that timing (For example, put a 1/1 token creature into play) then I can make the ability a little better.

Don't ask me to explain why I think a rhystic unsummon feels better than a normal unsummon though. :p