Ostracize compares badly to detain. It's too similar yet worse in so many ways. Also it's more of a ability I think (strangely enough).

Why don't you go with the "loses all abilities until your next turn" idea/focus instead? It also makes sense for the combination. While it's rather complex, to me exploring it seems to be more of a worthwhile effort - at least compared to sticking with this "sucky detain" variant.

Keep in mind that anything that removes abilities also has to set P/T. That would be way too much for a keyword mechanic.

Good idea. Trying it out. This set is intended to be a bit more complex (no real reason why other than flavor, and as custom cards I feel like I can sacrifice a bit more playability for flavor.)

That being said, humiliating a creature seems grokkable enough and 1/1 or 2/2 is easier to remember. Might up the ability to be 2/2 in order to separate it a bit more from Turn to Frog.

I am liking the targetted humility more and more. Given how many static abilities are in this set, as well as how ubiquitous 1/1s are, this mechanic seems perfect to fill in White's remaining mechanic gap.

The issue is the name. Ostracize doesn't quite fit the flavor for what it does, so here are a couple alternatives:

Decry, Shame, Humble, Degrade, Oppress, Persecute, Slander, Discredit

Trying to look for something that captures the flavor of random senators on the street giving impromptu speeches about how target creature's mother consorted with barbarians and how the creature plans to seize power and make himself a tyrant. I am partial to "Shame" right now, with Oppress as 2nd place. Thoughts?

Yeah, I quite like the current version. I think it should be 1/1: 2/2 gives you weird choices with creatures smaller than that. I like Shame and Humble as names, though the others would work too.

This doesn't need to set p/t...

> 107.2. If anything needs to use a number that can't be determined, either as a result or in a calculation, it uses 0 instead.

The interaction with Tarmogoyfs is pretty clear to me - though those kind of cards aren't prevalent enough to even warrant any reminder text IMO.

All previous effects that cause creatures to lose all abilities have set a power and toughness, so I think I'll keep the Power/Toughness setting. While I think what you say technically works within the rules, incidentally killing various sorts of Maros isn't what I want to go for in this, and just removing all abilities without shrinking the creature narrows its applications.

The day WotC decides to run with some kind of "silence" variant from Heartstone and all the custom designers on various sites jump on that bandwagon at moment's notice without batting a eye, I'll be rolling my eyes sooooo hard.

Seriously though, what Maro creature are you hesitant to hose? There's around 70 of them in modern, and this wouldn't kill Tarmo which is probably the most prolific of them. Standard has 5 Maros currently. There's like, what, 0 to 2 Maros per set?

Actually with this could you could push one or more Maros deliberately (since shame would act as a hose mechanic keeping them on check) and possibly have they have the "undefined number is zero" reminder text. Or you could just exclude all Maros from the set - it's not like they are a "must-have" for each set/block.

Setting p/t (to 1/1) means that you need to cost this pretty much at removal rates - since even if you get a single pinger this just starts shooting guys down fast. Also shame eliminates the creature as a threatful attacker and/or blocker. There's a crap ton of abilities which are meaningful enough on their own that this ability would still be plenty useful IMO. Plus you can likely pronounce the usefulness of this ability in the environment with minor adjustments.

I am not too sure why a temporary effect that humiliates a creature temporarily needs to be costed similarly to removal. I costed it similarly to Martial Law, which I believe is comparable - the 1/1 can still attack and block if needed as a chump block, but it also loses all abilities.

The Maro comment was meant to be more in line with (the person) Maro's design philosophy about cards needing to do intuitive things (one of the reasons why they changed the Oblivion Ring wording to Banishing Light's wording, to remove the not-so-corner case of blinking the card to exile something completely). Furthermore, every effect that removes abilities in the past has set a power and toughness, and I am loathe to eschew tradition like that.

The point about pingers is valid, but repeatable pingers are relatively rare these days, and I am fine with that being a hidden "interaction" that requires three colors and two cards to run. It's not like Wizards is hesitant to design cards that give deathtouch to creatures because pingers might exist. I'll keep it in mind as I design the set since it's an interaction that is important to be aware of.