Two things:

1. You'll probably find that you need to raise the regen cost on this guy, as a consistently growing regenerator is a huge board clogger. Yes, it needs to attack to grow, but unless Mindstrike is a lot stronger than I would expect, I imagine it will eventually be held back on guard duty once it reaches 3/3 or 4/4.

2. Mindstrike needs to be slightly reworded, as it's currently phrased as an action the attacking player performs, rather than something the defending player does.

"If this creature would deal damage to a player, instead that player puts that many cards from the top of his or her library into their graveyard."

I do like the flavor of removing the counter to regenerate.

M_Houlding was right; there needed to be something that disincentivized just sitting back on him as a lump of a blocker. This allows it to be used that way occasionally, but not indefinitely, and gives a solid reason to want to keep attacking whenever possible.

Removed regen clause. The ability would be better used elsewhere.

Is a 3/3 for 2 mana in B a good fit at uncommon? This becomes huge rather quickly and out of the range of most removal.

Yeah, that's a bit more critter growth than green usually gets, black normally needs at least "I ate something" as a trigger for it.

I agree; that ability looks rare to me. Raging Ravine is the only card that springs to mind with it.

This is going to sound self-serving, but I don t really see a problem here at all. The Scuttlebutt has Mindstrike, meaning it will never deal "real" combat damage to a player. The mechanic is not unlike Poison in that it creates an effective "separate life total, but in this case that new life total is generally in the 32-52 range. Mindstrike needs a few cards that make it a legitimate threat as a LImited format strategy, and this is one of them.

I've considered using a different trigger for putting the counters on it, but the current configuration is about as simple and clean as it gets, and is easy for an opponent to anticipate.

Besides, uncommon gets plenty of "game-breakers", and I'm still not convinced thi counts as one.

I think it would be fair to consider any Innistrad block draft or sealed pool with up to two copies of this as a reasonable test, since the set does have several mill enablers already.

It's very quickly going to be effectively unblockable (well, un-anything-but-chump able)

Dunno, try it, I guess - I've not really got a gut feel for how much of a discount mindstrike is worth.

Considering that you've already put "skittering" in the name, is there any reason this shouldn't be a naturally large creature with the illusion/skittering drawback? (i.e. "Whenever this becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.")

I don't know that it's especially problematic in its current form, but I also don't know that it needs to be a constantly growing thing, especially with an effect that I believe only exists on the aforementioned Raging Ravine and the just-released Predator Ooze.

If this were a 4/4 with the illusion-drawback, I think you'd have an interesting scenario where the creature is aggressive, blocks well, but your opponent won't really want to "waste" real removal on it because mindstrike is somewhat innocuous in its impact on the gamestate. The illusion-drawback also has an interesting relationship to the rest of your set, as it defines a subset of cards that don't play well with the aura/equipment subtheme prevalent in your white/blue lineup.

I probably would've overlooked it if this was a 1/1 but the point that the ability as it stands is more green should also be taken under advisement. The only other creature in the color that works similarly that I can think of is Szadek but even that has to hit a player.

Szadek also sucks but that's not the point; the point is that this comes down very early and by turn 4 cannot be removed except by a large/group blocker or mass removal, not to mention eating nearly everything that one could put out there.

There are no 3/3s (or larger) for 2 in B that don't have a drawback of some sort, even at uncommon nor can I think of any mono-B spells that mill 3 cards for 2 mana. Now I know Mindstrike is a B ability for the block but as I said: if this was a 1/1, I probably wouldn't have blinked.

M_Houlding's suggestion of giving it the illusion drawback is a very good one, I believe and it would allow this creature to remain at it's p/t and ability levels.

I got to admit that I don't disagree with SFletcher, partly because this sort of card depends on the environment it is in, and partly because I have no idea if this card is fair or not... which means it needs testing, not nerfing. Mindstrike in general reminds me of Bushido... and this creature, to me, vaguely looks like a 2/2 that gets Bushido X, where X is the number of times it attacked. That's good... but more of a Vampire Nighthawk 'I can't believe they printed that card' sort of good. And every keyword wants at least one of those. If SFletcher wants to draw that line on early black in this set, that sounds fair. As long as he's cool understanding that close to all Mindstrike decks and about 30% of the non-Mindstrike decks will pack this card... and few opponents will play red if black is dominant with this card.

As for it not being a black ability... sure it is. Black likes to attack. Maybe not as much as red, but it gets in there. All creatures use +1/+1 counters. Just because there hasn't been a card that's rewarded a black creature in this specific way doesn't mean there can't be.

What if it simply had a diffrent trigger? Such as, "Whenever an effect causes an opponent to put cards into their graveyard from their library, put a +1/+1 on this creatre."

If it was when it hit the opponent; I probably wouldn't have blinked.

It can't have a Slith-ability because it never actually deals damage to players, as Mindstrike replaces that function with a mill-effect.

It could have the Vulturous Zombie ability, but then you would still be looking at something inappropriate for Uncommon.

Could you make Mindstrike into a "damage-still-happens" ability rather than a damage-replacement ability? They're all the rage these days, you know, with wither and infect, and with lifelink being retrofitted into that model.

Something like "Mindstrike (This creature deals [combat] damage to players in the form of putting that many cards from the top of that player's library into his or her graveyard.)"

Yeah, actually, I just assumed that Mindstrike was dealing damage. I'm very much for it, too, since it increases interaction with damage prevention, instead of thumbing its nose at it.

I'm opposed to the idea for two reasons:

1) By making it a replacement for damage, it changes the way an opponent has to think about blocks. Combined with the Feint ability, this makes for an environment where engaging your adversary, i.e. combat, is not necessarily just about doing damage.

Debronia, the home nation of Soradyne Laboratories, is a very modern setting with no outward enemy to deal with (at this point in the story). The social and strategic environment is one of suspicions and ulterior motives. So from a flavor and thematic standpoint, Mindstrike helps to paint the combat element of the game as something more than just trying to smash face, it's also a means of gathering intel, of preventing an opponent's effective actions, of diverting attention from your other plans.

2) Modeling the creatures to serve a more narrow purpose – milling – makes them fit a more narrow build style. In a draft environment, this helps make the mechanic work because fewer player will grab random Mindstrikers based on general body. You're taking them because you intend to go for the mill, and if you wind up NOT going for the mill, your Mindstrikers really only serves the role of a blocker or a weak diversion.

Disincentivizing Mindstrikers among normal creatures actually makes them stronger in drafts since players taking them can get them in higher densities. See Infect for an applied demonstration of this.

Wait, I'm a tad confused over here. As far as I'm concerned, changing Mindstrike to a damage type doesn't increase complexity, except in very rare scenarios (i.e., damage prevention or redirection... both of which don't appear as a repeatable effect in common nowadays). It certainly has little to no effect on point 2, which makes me think you might be a bit confused SFletcher. Perhaps you're thinking that Alex and I are suggesting that the creature deals damage in addition to milling the opponent? I am definitely not for that at all. We're suggesting that Mindstrike becomes a type of damage, in the same way that Infect deals damage to players in the form of poison counters. It's actually kind-of-sort of how the rules do this sort of thing nowadays (See also: Wither, Lifelink, Deathtouch and Infect). In fact, many players (and, I'd guess, most experienced players) will just assume that Mindstrike is a type of damage, not read the card carefully, and treat it as such.

I can understand the flavor perspective, if you're major beef happens to be "Well, I don't like calling it a type of damage, because this is supposed to be espionage, not damage," but I got to admit, that sort of reasoning seems a bit misguided to me. The vast majority of the time, people won't notice the difference, so the flavor implications will be lost on them. The rare times they will notice the difference, however, is when the interaction comes up in a game, the player finds out that, no, what they thought was true is wrong, and they get a little upset because of it.

That's a fair point, and some of the other frequent commentators can attest to the fact that it was considered early on. Here's the challenge though: How do you word it?

The result of trying to make it work that way was incredibly cumbersome, and we eventually settled on what you currently see. The thing that really made me certain we got it right with this templating comes down to a confirmation in two words:

Undead Alchemist.

@Alex - Don't forget that it has to be phrased such that the defending player performs the action:

"This creature deals damage to players in the form of the defending player putting that many cards from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard."

That's a really silly sentence, but it would maintain the same basic functionality, while still allowing for damage-related modulations.

I don't know that Wither and Infect are sufficient precedent for that being how it should be done, as Wither and Infect are two very similar abilities that explore similar flavor, but I also don't know that there's much value in maintaining the current replacement effect. Regardless of which form, you would still have a contingent of players who fail at reading reminder text and believe that the card deals damage AND mills players.

Sorry, yes, jmg understood me and I think SFletcher misunderstood me. I admit my phrasing was very confusing. When I said "damage-still-happens", I meant that the damage is still dealt but has a different effect, as people have subsequently stated.

The point about defending player performing the action is an interesting one. I can see that technically it should be the case, but I might be tempted to have the reminder text as I suggested earlier and have the Comp Rules spell out in full that it's actually defending player who does the flipping. I don't know who the people are who get uptight about letting opponents touch their cards, but I wouldn't think they'd be sufficiently fussed to complain about that without also finding out that the detailed rules say the defender is the one to touch the cards.

Ha, yeah, that's just how mill is always written out. I've never looked at the Infraction Guide in detail, but I suspect you might actually get a game misconduct for touching your opponent's library outside of shuffling, so they probably just spell it out that way so that people don't casually perform the action.

Well, I can see the argument a bit clearer now, and I think you know my point of view on it, so we can let this rest now. Either way, I like ability. In fact, I'd be surprised if Wizards didn't do a variant of this sometime in the next five years. Not next block, though... they still got to distance themselves from Poison.

They did do a variant: Undead Alchemist, in Innistrad. The spoiler that revealed him came out about one month after Houlding (I think?) came up with our template here. And it should be noted that they used the same wording.

So much debate around this guy, and in the end, testing showed that it was particularly strong. Between the options of making it a 3-drop 2/2 or a 2-drop 1/1, I’ve gone with the latter. I want the Mindstrikers to really be able to hit the ground running, so angling towards the low end of the curve is, I think, the right way to go.