Return to Alara: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Return to Alara: (Generated at 2025-09-01 20:34:25)
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I would make this two separate static abilities rather than a single static ability that connects two effects with an "and". It reads cleaner.
Compare: Ascendant Evincar, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
You could even alter jmgariepy's wording to reference "card in a player's graveyard or hand" instead; this way the minor interaction with forecast etc. is not lost, but the effect is less narrow.
I like that exile can be used as a catch-all that will be most satisfying.
@amuseum: Well, yes. But you're already discarding to get those effects, so there's no benefit.
I was going to suggest exiling from hand instead. But then I realized that a cycled card would be in the graveyard when the ability resolves. But... wouldn't this card be more relevent if it exiled cards with activated abilities from the graveyard anyway? Exiling from graveyard is still a black ability, so the cost would be fine. And it seems like a good way to get rid of a Dread Wanderer for good...
You could even use less words all around: "Counter target spell, activated ability, or triggered ability. If the ability of a permanent or card in a player's graveyard is countered this way, exile it."
cycling, reinforce, etc.
Forecast exists as a mechanic. And the reason activated abilities from your hand are so rare is than only black can answer them (via discarding cards.) The ability is also needed to make the card feel black.
Does that last ability affect more than like 3 cards in all of Magic?
I don't think there is anything wrong with the name Bant Banner mirroring Abzan Banner.
The current name (Bant Borderstone) invites comparison to Wildfield Borderpost which these are certainly not.
Thematically borderstones were cool since their colors fell "in-between" two shards and the new borders were an essential part of the setting. Bant itself is not a "in-between", it's the thing that borders to other things, so the name seems ill-fitting.
Since you seem to return to a united Alara the people of the plane are now aware of the other (former) shards and it seems reasonable to assume Esperites and Nayans etc. will have developped an identity by now based on their common history and understanding of the world.
As such I think the shards who didn't have a need to give themselves a shard-wide banner before (since there was no one else for them to distinguish themselves from) would probably create a Bant Banner etc. in the aftermath of the Conflux.
tl; dr: You should call these banners if you mechanically make them arc-aligned mirrors to the existing wedge-aligned mirrors of the clans.
4R 5/3 Convoke. Unsure if it should have trample.
Orcish Oriflamme + Dampening Pulse + Unnerving Assault. Worded the same way as unnerving assault to get the top-down Grixis Parasitism feel in the nonblack parts.
Note that since blue gets around uncounterable spells with Summary Dismissal/Time Stop and black can get around untarget creatures far easier that blue can stop countable spells I really don't view the effect to getting around target restrictions as unprintable (black gets forced sacrifice, mass destructions and anti-tribal stuff). And Life's Finale gives you this effect as a board wipe. And Void
On the other hand I do really like how it gets arround targeting limits as emerges organically from the design, lines u[ with the rest of the cranial extraction effects and makes it feel more like your banning a card, which makes it feel more white. So it really feels like the card should get targeting restrictions.
Since this works like a Time Stop scale answer anything effect six mana feels like safer cost than five. Although that does it to slower to be used as a Cranial Extraction effect.
Anyone else want to give their thoughts?
Raising the mana cost from
to 
.
Hmm. Well, it's normally Eradicate, or Splinter after Argent Mutation. Better against multiples on the field, of course. Also serves as a preemptive Quash. And bypassing targeting restrictions (protection, shroud, hexproof) doesn't make it significantly more powerful, but is quirky.
Given that Utter End is four mana, I suspect this is a tiny bit cheap, but 6 mana seems very plausible. (I suspect development would try to make it target the permanents with that name though.)
I'm pretty damn sure "exile target permanent and all other permanents its controller controls with the same name, ignore any and all rules about targeting permanents" is a) not a card that is printable and b) Not a card whose cost would just be 5 mana.
Memoricide/Cranial Extraction that also hits that players nonland permanents on the field.