Premise

­ would copy creatures you control.

­ would only copy creatures (and other permanents) that you don't control.

See "Copying creatures in Green".

Flavor

­ copying your stuff would be flavored as pack mentality, evolution, breeding and growth: pretty much all the things commonly seen in the color already.

­ would copy stuff your opponents control since it isn't interested in making "more of the same" or mass producing. So would be reverse engineering and garnering new ideas from outside sources (stealing someone else's good ideas).

Precedent

• Spitting Image
• Doubling Chant, Dual Nature (cards that search for an additional copy of a creature from library)
• Populate (cards that copy creature tokens)
• Giant Adephage, Spawnwrithe, Splitting Slime, Sprouting Phytohydra (creatures that copy themselves)

I don't think green needs this. Does it really need to be in three colors? I would rather just see it expanded in red.

See Twinflame, Flameshadow Conjuring, Heat Shimmer, and Tilonalli's Skinshifter.

I think Green is fine with creatures that copy themselves. That's enough.

Maybe. While this would expand 's pie, this is also about reducing 's monopoly on many of the effects currently available.

There are many effects that appear in different colors determined by the clauses and restrictions. Ie. grave recursion: instant and sorcery in izzet, creature recursion in abzan, any in green, permanent recursion in selesnya, etc...

However, effects like bounce, cloning, counter spells, mind control, etc are something that only is allowed to do. They pretty much have no secondary colors. Only minor exceptions to this exist: can bounce its own stuff, and can Threaten.

So yeah.

As far as expanding cloning in , many of 's abilities are determined by them being temporal (like "impulse" drawing). That still fits nicely into the idea of spreading further different facets of effects between colors.

So:

• can temporally clone stuff: become copy UEOT, creature token copy that's exiled at end of turn
• creates copies of its own stuff
• creates copies of opponent's stuff
• can copy tokens (mass production) - perhaps not restricted just creature tokens
• no cloning / copying effects in general

I'd object more; but I just made Cucoo so I have no legs to stand on.

I like the idea of red getting UEOT clones. I also like the idea of green only getting to clone itself - templated as breeding; or growing additional heads hydra-style.

But I don't think this is a thing green should get to do often at all.

Mainly though: Green gets to make big tokens. It used to get swarms of snakes; now it gets elephants and white gets the snakes. So sure, sometimes those tokens can be something else you already have.

That Cucoo is actually very close to Sprouting Phytohydra, but much stronger since it replaces/prevents the damage. Gameplay wise I would be concerned: it doesn't take that many blocks before the board is completely locked in the ground by those chickens. That's also a very depressing board to play out.

To be honest, cloning/copying effects are quite complex so can't have that many of them on lower rarities unless you come up with something like populate - and that would likely only be for a single set / block.

So with this shift I could see there being like around 1 green rare per set with a clone/copy effect - similarly to how often currently has clones. Btw, I indicated this by setting this topic's "card"'s rarity to rare - Ie. which rarity this shift would affect the most.

­ getting big tokens is related to the fact that green in general gets bigger stuff while gets more weenies. This is one attempt to make white and green play differently even though they are both creature centric colors (large percentage of their cards per set are creatures).

Any non-Ooze/Slime that clones itself would honestly feel weird, no matter the flavor. I wouldn't want to see it on a spell - there's a marked difference between cloning and breeding, and I don't necessarily want to think about the implications of making my Eternal Witness birth a clone of herself. I believe Splitting Image was one of those cards that Maro mentioned shouldn't have been hybrid, whatever that's worth.

If anything, I'd like to see more morphing in green (a la Dragonshift) - Skinshifter is one of my favorite rares.

From what I kind find MaRo seems quite fine with being secondary in cloning (and Spitting Image):

> Blogatog search for Spitting Image

Flavor can certainly be an issue I won't be denying that.

Green morph is another idea: I could create a "topic" for that (this is set is open so that anyone can edit and create new topics). While questionable, Snakeform was a card. A Gift of Tusks could succeed where Beast Within failed.

Well, Gift of Tusks overlaps with Song of the Dryads when it comes to replacing Beast Within. Definitely much meat on that topic.

But since Skinshifter was mentioned, wouldn't that also be a viable flavor for a clone effect?

> ": ~ becomes a copy of target Beast you control until end of turn."

etc.

I recall Pyrulea had (at some point, maybe still) a rare variant on the simple mana dude that could become a copy of a land you control until end of turn.

Becoming copy of another you control is certainly something 's can do. How/does that relate to Mirror Entity? Going with that train of though, do we morph into Ursapine ie. into shade pumps. Mirror Entity's effect is rarely used anywhere. It's in a sense an untapped space that hasn't been used and as such, it made sense in purple (sixth color) - even in flavor as the color had a infinity-nothingness theme ( & ). This is kind of off-topic but what do you guys think of Infinomancer? How about Emptiness?

I assumed Mirror Entity was partly because it applied to everything, white gets mass effects more often than other colours.

I don't think mixing discussion about p/t setting effects with copying effects just because both are flavored as shapeshifting is fruitful. They are often far closer to +X/+X and -X/-X effects.

Maybe that's an entire different topic.

Now Essence of the Wild does make a good impression impression of something similar why Mirror Entity should be green: When it comes to X costs you take into account the most favorable outcomes and while I expect it can be explained as "turning all your creatures 0/0 and then repeated Charge would do something similar" the ability has a tendency towards Overrun. In essence it is a bend, because changelings explored a lot of less-used design space - and its own can of worms/wurms.

­Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, Permeating Mass add interesting questions. The first would seem far more green (though token copies fit white - and maybe any color - more than outright clones); while the second could be blue-tinged, though it is somewhat expicable based on green getting deathtouch.

Everything that just expresses itself onto other things is basically the color itself is; I imagine some keyword that allowed creating copies of itself could go into any color - myriad style - even if the copy overwrites your other creature - but overwriting an opponent's creature? While there are existing examples, I think blue/black should be at the core of that - for the same reason I would say that about offensive p/t setting. Again its own can of worms.

What does this say about Body Double though? That would be black. What about Copy Enchantment? Sculpting Steel? Copy effects have a wider range than just your own creature permanents.

Yeah, discussing where in the current color pie setting a individual creature's p/t to some dynamic value is worthy of another discussion. I think it's truly one of those 'purple' effects that has no place at the moment. Biomass Mutation is one another card doing the thing Mirror Entity does, but it too is a mass p/t setting effect.

I recall seeing the idea of Essence of the Wild first on a Fumar's card at MTG Salvation as a white card:

> Coronation Malach
> Creature - Angel (M)
> Flying
> Each other nonland permanent you control is a copy of ~.
> When dawn arrives, there will be a crown for each head.
> 6/6

To me this kind of assimilation and 'copying perfection' seems like it should be a thing - not since nature likes its diversity. is quite predicated on that hunter & prey cycle (survival of the fittest - life and death) among other things.

Hmm, in the article that I link to in the OP, I was thinking could copy your own artifacts (mass production) while could copy your opponents' stuff (reverse engineering).

On enchantments I'm not so sure...

Re: Coronation Malach

I don't know whether I got that across because I was talking about so many things in my lastz comment, but I think Coronation Malach and Essence of the Wild are equally valid - they just use similar mechanics to get each an in-color outcome.

I would feel worse if green had flying or white a big groundpounder, but as long as the base-template is in-color you could probably have a black Demon or Zombie lord expand upon the mechanic as well.

I don't buy there being proper variants in . Maybe something with a tribal team etched onto them such as "Zombies you control ETB as a copy of ~" but otherwise - naaah man. are the rebellious colors about individuality. I don't see it being thematically correct for them to conform and become part of the faceless mass.

Some kind of curse or whatnot where opponents' creatures ETB as a certain Zombie or whatever could mayhaps work.

I don't have much for discussion right now, but I did try and design a few green clone cards. Niche Filler, Mighty Packmate, Like Rabbits, Pup/Cub, and Brutal Packmate.

The first four were all designs I felt tied to animals and nature, with the last being mechanical (which I mention should probably be another color).