I know Banishing Light/Oblivion Ring is a little too good for common these days, and this would be perfectly playable in Limited, but it still makes me sad to see things strictly worse than staple spells.

My logic is, I like to make mostly-worst spells that are interesting in some other way whenever possible. But often you can't, and you just need to accept that you make a strictly-worse spell (or a spell with a minor upside that's still not very satisfying).

I considered any thematic change to this spell, but didn't have any good idea. Maybe return it to the battlefield tapped?

Note; if it had some trinket to fit the ice theme, we'd probably give it more of a pass.

I'm just over here trying to figure out how to make a card that separates 'walking' creature combat from 'swimming' creature combat. I love the potential flavor of this card...

Heh. Raging River ?

How about justifying the extra cost by adding a countdown to it - so if something stays trapped under the ice too long it's gone forever?

A countdown is not really suitable for common, sadly. But something like that could work. Except to be within colour pie it still needs to fit the "white's answers have answers" criterion - so it shouldn't be able to exile the target too quickly.

(OTOH, things like Caught in the Brights and Weight of Conscience rather fail that criterion too.)

­Isolation Zone seems like a much more apt comparison. That was a super good card, and this is a mana more for a little more flexibility. This is already plenty texty for common, it shouldn't have any additional effects or complexity -- I'd recommend keeping exactly as is if the set wants an O-Ring effect at common.

--CF