I would word this as:

> Target opponent returns a card from his or her graveyard to his or her hand. If he or she does, exile target creature that player controls.

It's perhaps little awkward but this way it isn't 1-cmc removal without any drawback if the opponent has no grave, which is not that unlikely of a state when the game just began or something like Rest in Peace is on the board.

Of interest might be that Judgment had a cycle of sorts that played around with the idea of letting opponents get cards from their grave as a drawback (note that threshold was also in the set): Nullmage Advocate, Pulsemage Advocate, Spurnmage Advocate. None of them tried to break the color pie though :S

Well, green certainly gets to do this on its own stuff. Cycle of death and rebirth and all that jazz. On your opponent is somewhat more concerning though. Certainly needs to not be unconditional removal without involving any of your creatures.

I was going for a color-shifted Swords to Plowshares so unconditional was the baseline. This certainly not as strong as Swords to Plowshares, imho, and Regrowth is a very powerful magic card.

Path to Exile gives a basic land and Swords gives just a pittance of life. This is way better for the opponent except when the opponent has no graveyard, which is in the very start of a game of magic where not much has happened (or it has and you get the downside because there are cards in the graveyard) or when something like Rest in Peace is onboard. Swords has no downside when Erebos is in play and Path has no downside when Stranglehold is in play so it seems okay to me to have a two card 'combo' like that.

I would also put forward Beast Within as a counter example to unconditional removal not involving your creatures. :)

Thanks for the discussion though! It helps to hear what people think.

For what it's worth, Reincarnation could target the opponent. But, yes, that card is very old, and no, it wasn't a removal spell.

For what it's worth, I think this card is a neat idea. I can cite, like, four problems I have with it. But I'd rather say "Neat card", and leave it at that.

That said, I can't help but mention that any criticism for this card would melt away if it cost or . And with the increased cost, you could also make this card target any non-land permanent. Just an idea.

I like some of your ideas jmgariepy! I feel you're right and the jaunt towards Abrupt Decay and others would probably take the qualms away. Strange how mtg psychology works, haha.

­Beast Within? Lol. You might as well be citing Desert Twister. Those cards are notorious precisely because they suffer from the same problem.

Personally I find the idea of a "green Path to Exile" sensible, something that Song of the Dryads is rather close to, though I think it also is frowned upon and was only printed for a EDH product which isn't modern legal (also why something like Chaos Warp could see print).

So for the same reason, if you are aiming to modify legacy with this then I guess modern color pie implications hold less sway, which I assume you are doing since Swords to Plowshares is known to be one of the best creature removal spells ever printed and you mention it casually that you are somehow using it as a "baseline". Even then I would like to question why would you want to give green removal that could possibly content with white's and black's. Usually when people are measuring cards to Swords they are looking for a counterpart since it's reaally weird that white has better removal than black in those older formats. I think this was in part the reason why Fatal Push was also printed (since even in Modern Path to Exile exists).

How about making it the controller of the creature can search their library for a creature to hand? That way there's always some downside when using it for removal; and there's more incentive to use it on your own stuff.

@Tahazzar I don't see it as 'suffering' so much as a commonality. Permanent destruction is tertiary part of the Green color pie. We have Imprisoned in the Moon in standard, even though that effect isn't 'Blue' in nature. I wasn't designing with any particular thing in mind but I often play Cube and Commander so cards I often play with are of Legacy power level.

@Vitenka I like that too! I had considered something like that of the madcap-style tutors. I think I'll change it to that and it opens up the uses of the card from straight removal to a Crop Rotation type effect, which is SUPER sweet.