It looks a lot like Harrow where you additionally do a basic land cycle for a card in your hand - plus the lands come into play tapped and this is a sorcery opposed to an instant.
Regardless, it seems wacky for a red card. I certainly have personally entertained notions of doing this sort of stuff in red, such as colorshifting Crop Rotation to red, but not actually land ramping though.
I consider basic landcycling an especially potent cycling variant, which is why I kept the increase in mana value, but I find your reasoning compelling.
The issue with the effect is that it is a rather equal exchange in quantity and the most common lands are pretty interchangeable, so the effect could be cheap - except sometimes you can color screw an opponent, which puts this with the worst use of land destruction.
Shifting Borders is clever in pairing the high cost with a re-usability mechanic. Maybe cipher would have been the better call.
Hmm, the Shifting Borders you mention is obviously also but Kamigawa as a whole is notorious for its low power level. Since we don't prolly want to one-up Political Trickery, and this has basic landcycling, it would seem reasonable to me to make it cost . This would make it less bad competitively afaik, while not being strictly better Trickery, and also highlight the fact that it does indeed have a basic landcycling option that would be especially reasonable to use if you at the moment weren't able to produce the now required double for the base card.
I could have sworn I have seen a similar wording on a canon card, but I read so many custom cards, I might not be attributing this correctly.
Thinking about it made me realize that the whole effect is adapt with one quirky difference: Using adapt the if-clause would no longer be intervening. o.O
Hmm, interesting. I basically have only passing familiarity with Strixhaven overall.
This definitely isn't the first time I have heard of the Lorehold faction being referred by custom designers. People seem quite interested in the faction which is understandable considering how far apart it's from the usual boros-aligned stuff we have seen - specifically the concept of white as a 'historian', which people are often trying to use as a justification to expand the color's mechanical pie.
While I can see how it's related to the faction's flavor, "cards leaving GYs" is a peculiar mechanical theme of choice by WotC.
Mmm, this seems like a type of card one would make for a specific niche but you have posted it as a general CotD. Could you maybe open a bit your thoughts behind this design?
"Exile ... up two... from among... If three or more left graveyards" all of this seems quite wordy and convoluted wording for a common. That the first effect doesn't trigger the second is kind of a puzzle in itself - though if it did then you would just put the counter on it rather than have a condition obviously.
I don't think cards leaving graveyards is that common of an occurrence for that condition to be fulfilled that often, outside of say multiple copies of this somehow getting played in end game, which really makes me convinced this is for some sort of specific environment where cards leaving graveyards is tied to a set-mechanic.
It looks like it's clearly for GY hate, yet for that second condition to trigger it would mean from that hate perspective that the opponent would need to get one of their cards out of their GY on your turn, where recursion or such is generally more likely to occur on their own turn. That makes me think this card could use / ought to have flash.
Then again, maybe the condition is meant to trigger with your own recursion, though that sort of stuff is more connected to black color, and why would you then be running GY hate yourself? (head scratching)
The flavor I found about equally perplexing. What has being "Warbound" to do with exiling cards from graveyards? It seems imply some sort of connection to past (ancient) wars from which it... gains strength somehow... by removing the memory of those wars? It seems really fuzzy.
Weird hybrid wording "Exile target creature from the game" fixed.
It looks a lot like Harrow where you additionally do a basic land cycle for a card in your hand - plus the lands come into play tapped and this is a sorcery opposed to an instant.
Regardless, it seems wacky for a red card. I certainly have personally entertained notions of doing this sort of stuff in red, such as colorshifting Crop Rotation to red, but not actually land ramping though.
I assume this was made before Seismic Shift?
I consider basic landcycling an especially potent cycling variant, which is why I kept the increase in mana value, but I find your reasoning compelling.
I also notice now that Shifting Borders is an instant.
The issue with the effect is that it is a rather equal exchange in quantity and the most common lands are pretty interchangeable, so the effect could be cheap - except sometimes you can color screw an opponent, which puts this with the worst use of land destruction.
Shifting Borders is clever in pairing the high cost with a re-usability mechanic. Maybe cipher would have been the better call.
Hmm, the Shifting Borders you mention is obviously also
but Kamigawa as a whole is notorious for its low power level. Since we don't prolly want to one-up Political Trickery, and this has basic landcycling, it would seem reasonable to me to make it cost 
. This would make it less bad competitively afaik, while not being strictly better Trickery, and also highlight the fact that it does indeed have a basic landcycling option that would be especially reasonable to use if you at the moment weren't able to produce the now required double 
for the base card.
Seems solid. Less useful now that landwalk is not really a thing, so it's not so much of a "Sea serpent to the face" enabler; but solid.
Apparently Shifting Borders exists. Also Political Trickery.
So let's add basic landcycling and
to the mana cost. Happy to have intuited an appropriate cost.
...
...
added rarity
I could have sworn I have seen a similar wording on a canon card, but I read so many custom cards, I might not be attributing this correctly.
Thinking about it made me realize that the whole effect is adapt with one quirky difference: Using adapt the if-clause would no longer be intervening. o.O
Common is correct.
Nice. A common?
Could it be worded in the following way:
> "Whenever ~ attacks alone, if it has no +1/+1 counter on it, put one on it."
? Context for that seems clear here.
...
...
common >> uncommon
...
...
Hmm, interesting. I basically have only passing familiarity with Strixhaven overall.
This definitely isn't the first time I have heard of the Lorehold faction being referred by custom designers. People seem quite interested in the faction which is understandable considering how far apart it's from the usual boros-aligned stuff we have seen - specifically the concept of white as a 'historian', which people are often trying to use as a justification to expand the color's mechanical pie.
While I can see how it's related to the faction's flavor, "cards leaving GYs" is a peculiar mechanical theme of choice by WotC.
It's been created with Strixhaven on my mind, where the red-white faction theme involved benefiting from cards leaving the graveyard.
The first half is supposed to enable the condition, while the second half is supposed to benefit from already having the condition enabled.
The plane Strixhaven is situated on has a strongly implied past of ancient wars and some spirits they awaken are bound to be warriors.
The tension between wanting to run this alongside recursion and being a tool too empty out graveyards is why I make it optional.
The effect ballooned a bit past its original text length. I could see this moving to uncommon - as well for being such a consistent enabler.
Mmm, this seems like a type of card one would make for a specific niche but you have posted it as a general CotD. Could you maybe open a bit your thoughts behind this design?
"Exile ... up two... from among... If three or more left graveyards" all of this seems quite wordy and convoluted wording for a common. That the first effect doesn't trigger the second is kind of a puzzle in itself - though if it did then you would just put the counter on it rather than have a condition obviously.
I don't think cards leaving graveyards is that common of an occurrence for that condition to be fulfilled that often, outside of say multiple copies of this somehow getting played in end game, which really makes me convinced this is for some sort of specific environment where cards leaving graveyards is tied to a set-mechanic.
It looks like it's clearly for GY hate, yet for that second condition to trigger it would mean from that hate perspective that the opponent would need to get one of their cards out of their GY on your turn, where recursion or such is generally more likely to occur on their own turn. That makes me think this card could use / ought to have flash.
Then again, maybe the condition is meant to trigger with your own recursion, though that sort of stuff is more connected to black color, and why would you then be running GY hate yourself? (head scratching)
The flavor I found about equally perplexing. What has being "Warbound" to do with exiling cards from graveyards? It seems imply some sort of connection to past (ancient) wars from which it... gains strength somehow... by removing the memory of those wars? It seems really fuzzy.
Fixed typo
Fixed typo