As a variation on Void, would it be lame to have it bounce all nonland permanents with chosen CC first? It would certainly raise the power a good deal, but it's rare for too many on-board objects to have the same CC anyway.

It's an interesting proposition, but it would enable absolute removal of artifacts and Enchantments, two things black and blue just can't deal with that effectively. I was looking at both Void and Lobotomy when I designed this, and wanting something that fell in that space between Traumatized and Haunting Echoes.

Within the set, it's the Kitt to Mindstrike's Michael Knight. Outside of the set, it's still a nasty little steel-toed boot in the balls.

That's true, but how about just bouncing creatures then? At the moment, it being blue is largely arbitrary.

I think this flows pretty well as-is. Barring some glaring not-yet-found fault, I think it's fine. Lobotomy falls in the same category; at least in this case I've acknowledged the "blacker" nature with a double-B in the cost.

I sat down with Bombshell and a few others this weekend and took a look at the balance of this card. We came to two conclusions:

1) M_Houlding is not entirely wrong, but there have been several blue spells that have done this kind of "extraction" effect. It's been a while since blue got an extractor this powerful, and recently the effect has been used to "steal" rather than just outright deny. To this end, we felt that while the card should probably lean more black, it wasn't inappropriate to leave some trace of blue in the cost.

2) At six mana, the spell was a wrecking ball. We determined that the full effect of this spell was probably on par with Alara's Ultimatums, and that as such, the CMC had to be at least seven. This also reinforced for us that the spell should probably include blue mana, as it at least forced some additional mana diversity to play. Alternatively, we could have gone with something like , but my intent is to encourage the play of the "factions" in the set. In this case, the "mill faction" spans black and blue. Including a card so valuable to this faction that would also discourage playing roughly half the faction's cards would be counterproductive.

Now, to circle back around to previous discussions on the set as a whole, I still do not feel that this makes the set a "multicolor" set. The factions are set up to predominantly keep players in two colors, which is not at all unusual in either limited or constructed, and doesn't require and adverse amount of mana fixing. Overall, my design intent is to provide the tools to play a wide variety of deck types, from tribal to swarm-aggro to griefer control. There are absolutely some elements that can be viewed as multicolor, but that quality is generally secondary to the role of "theme tool". That said, if someone sees a way to create a "color-matters multicolor" deck from the pieces I'm building, more power to 'em. It's just not a faction I conciously set forward to create.

Not to fuss too much about it, but the the last blue Extract spell was in Onslaught, a good 8+ years ago. Circu, Dimir Lobotomist has blue in his cost, but to me that's more representative of his Meddling Mage effect.

RE: Multicolor - I think any misinterpretation that you're emphasizing a multicolor orientation is that your skeleton demonstrates a multicolor foundation about on par with Shards of Alara. That a large portion of those cards are found at Rare and Mythic will obscure that fact that ~1/5th of the set is multicolored, but you may want to reconsider some of your distributions. For instance, in the broader scheme of imagining this spread across an actual block, is it necessary to include so many legendary characters in the first set?

Hmm...one of the drawbacks, perhaps, of having played Magic for 15 years is that sometimes ideas hold fast when maybe they should be allowed to slide around.

I take M_Houlding's point that it has been awhile since the last Lobotomy style spell but given the current nature of Intense Scrutiny I don't think it can exist without blue. Black has moved into the graveyard/library remove from game aspect but taking something from the hand as well-this is where it starts to get more blue for me. In addition, black has relied on a pre-existing card to work (see Spinal Extraction.) The addition of blue means you can pick a number-even one that may not exist based on current information.

There is also a compliment to Void here which was reprinted as recently as Time Spiral which I take as a clear indication that WotC considers this to be a theme worth bringing back from time to time.

Finally, since Scrutiny is at Rare, I think that it can push the boundary of Blue in a way that Lobotomy (which was Uncommon in Invasion) did, but at the appropriate place in the rarity cycle.

All that taken into account; there is a logical reason to remove blue from this card-but I feel that if blue is removed, then the card will have to be rephrased to make it more black.

I'm not sure why, but I tend to agree: the individual effects fit best in black, but the card as a whole feels right where it is.

Searching just library, with no information, by set release:

­Jester's Cap
­Denying Wind
­Extract
­Supreme Inquisitor
­Neverending Torment
­Bitter Ordeal
­Nightmare Incursion
­Sadistic Sacrament

Search all zones, based on targeted information, by release:

­Eradicate
­Squash
­Scour
­Splinter
­Sowing Salt
­Extirpate
­Counterbore
­Surgical Extraction

Search all zones, based on choice, by release:

­Lobotomy
­Cranial Extraction
­Shimian Specter
­Thought Haemmorhage
­Memoricide

Now, it's not entirely the best approach to design if you operate strictly according to precedence based on data collection, but the above timeline is strongly suggestive of this effect being most strongly connected to black. Of particular interest is that Shimian Specter was granted the Lobotomy effect without any blue in its cost, and that's in a block dedicated to nostalgia whenever possible. The key distinguishing characteristic here is that you are choosing a numerical value, rather than a name, which has actually only appeared on R/x and artifact cards to this point.

I don't know much about the flavor of the set, but I do feel that applying multicolor costs where they're not absolutely necessary is one of the biggest problems that affected the design of Shards block. And that was IN an actual multicolor block. If you want to shed any misconception of strongly multicolored themes, I would shed extra colors wherever possible.

If it's desired that this remain multicolored, I would suggest developing this to be better representative or synergistic with Kavion Foehr, Industrialist, who I think may need a bit of remodeling so that he's not an overcosted Withered Wretch in a significant number of matches.

Clearly, there's room to shift this to a mono-colored card.

However, if it becomes a mono-colored card I fear that it will have to become like all the monocolored black cards that do this; change in template, change in style, so it mirrors current ideas and lose part of the vision that designing your own set affords you, namely the opportunity to make a mark on something that is your own.

I'm not saying that it's incorrect to make this a mono-colored card: solid arguments to both sides are there. I'm saying that as an opportunity to do something cool that nudges MtG into a future with nods to its past I personally prefer the B/u version of this card.

One possibility may be to make the card B/r. This would incorporate the number-choosing mechanic, evoked 2x previously, play up the possibility of getting random cards, and fit in nicely with the "nihilist" theme--it's gone, eradicated as though it was never there.

It also has a chance to play into another faction's ideas, so that from a mechanical perspective, cards can play together instead of apart.

Hey, leave Kavion out of it; he's so awesome he can play YOUR lands from your graveyard. That's way better than Withered Wretch.

A mono-black Intense Scrutiny could arguably be a nihilist-flavored card even without red, I think.

I completely agree about maintaining personal vision, so I don't want to overstate any of my objections.

A similar (but crazier) design that would align itself with Pale Tarkot might make the effect universal and effect the board, as such:

CARDNAME HERE
­
Sorcery
Choose a number. Each player searches their opponents’ graveyard, library, and hand for all cards with converted mana cost equal to the chosen number and exiles them. Then each player shuffles his or her library and sacrifices all permanents that share a name with a card exiled this way.

Probably not worth the amount of "feel-bad" moments, but it does take it beyond the realms of monocolor.

It's not that this card couldn't be mono-B; I think we all agree that it /could/. It's just that it couldn't stay the way it is written as a mono-B card. In this case, I think that it would just become another Haunting Echoes and not have much leg to stand on, getting a ho-hum reaction.

Given that there's been a lot of discussion about it, however, I'd say that Scrutiny would go on the watch list while testing. Maybe when the card is played, it just doesn't feel blue at all and players will know if we kick them in the pie.

Also; the card M_Houlding's come up with is definitely not worth the 'feel bad' moments. The Ultimatums were barely fun (either outright terrible or game ending but not finishing so you limped until they killed you) and I think veers too much to griefer and too little into fun. Though it is definitely a multicolor card-and would have to have a 'non-zero' clause added, else people's lands get eaten. Unless that was the point and then it's even less fun, I think.

Finally just decided to go all-black on this one. Made adjustments accordingly.

Wow. Want one. Or more. It does seem cheap; but on t'other hand you have to have already done something to them. And Surgical Extraction does most of the 'denied!' that this does, a lot cheaper.

Non-zero CMC might be easier than denying lands twice?

Fascinating card. At first it looks like a horribly overcosted version of Extirpate / Surgical Extraction, but then I read the little "CMC" detail. Interesting that it'll hurt some decks (say weenie decks) a heck of a lot more than some others (say Birthing Pod decks).

And it will pretty much be an auto-win against "Who/What/When/Where/Why" decks (if I read the rules correctly, although obviously that doesn't matter) :)

Bwahahahahaa :)

Given this card's ability to affect the game, would it be better to make it BBB then?

I can see why not--it feels like an I Win card if it resolves but it isn't, so keeping it tilted towards playable isn't a bad thing. At the same time, this is a very powerful effect and the threshold for keeping something out of dual-colored decks isn't as high as it used to be.