"How would black do Ancestral Vision?"

This may be okay to play, but it's a bit boring that it's so much like Ancestral Vision.

I also thought this at first but after a few years of experience with this kind of cube my opinion changed. When playing with custom cards people actually seem to like it when there are cards that are not too far from what they know. That's even more true with sets that are supposed to be drafted. In a draft where they are confronted with so many new cards familiarity is a strong factor that makes the set play better. This card is just black Visions and works the way you'd expect black Visions to work. Clearly it isn't the most innovating designs but I think cards like this serve the purpose of the set well.

That's interesting. My playgroup, on the other hand, doesn't like when cards are too close to real ones but aren't them exactly because noticing differences becomes confusing and a memory issue. So if I need redundancy, I try to design subtle answers.

I guess a Legacy-like environment does need more redundancy, so if it works for you, go for it.

As for the card in a vacuum, it would be more interesting for me if it had a mana cost, and maybe just was two cards, so that it would be more interesting to think when to play it. But I guess that's not what the card is up to.

The thing is I don't only play the cube with my playgroup but also take it to different stores and just ask around if anyone is up for a round. When I play it with people I know I do more often get the feedback that cards are too similar but when playing with strangers they more often are happy that I reduced the mental load.

I might not even need that many Visions-like effects so if I go down on those the black one is the first I'm going to cut. As I wrote on the front page, right now I'm just pumping the file full of cards and do numbers later.

Actually I did exactly that twist on Hymn to Tourach, see Anthem of Tourach.