You know, Dude, I'd argue with you. But that is the counterargument plainly put. And while I don't agree with it, I agree that it's a perfectly respectable argument.

There will be proliferate-esque effects at higher rarities, but the poison counters are mostly for flavor; in this set, it's mostly used to track how much life you're going to lose with overdose. The idea is that most Overdose cards are going to be on the more powerful side (or provide powerful effects); but playing more than a few runs the risk of accidentally losing the game because you paid 6-10 life to cast some strong spells.

Red and Black will have higher concentrations of Overdose cards; hence the existence of cards like Tuvshchik Equalizer that encourage a suicide-style deck.

Mmm, the mechanic isn't a huge downside. Maybe it could poison both you and the caster? Making it more obvious that the set has surces of poison not under your control?

Mainly I'd worry more about the name mismatch. This name sounds like it would emove poison, not add it.

Counterpoint: overdose is meaningless in a set that's not built around poison. The drawback is meaningless unless poison poses an actual risk. It reminds me of the poison pain land that was going to be part of the Future Sight land cycle, but turned out to just be an Underground Sea for 9 turns because the drawback was irrelevant

Interesting. This makes for a pretty good mechanic for a set that doesn't contain poison counters, since it finds an alternate way to use them.

I'd argue against actually using poison counters for the 'right' reason in the same set, though. It diminishes all the value of overdose, and any cards that work along a similar avenue, and makes them all look like bad choices because of it.

(There's a certain player who hates cards with drawbacks, and double hates cards designers that force them into choosing to do the drawback to themselves because its the best option. Overdose doesn't quite go over that line, since one or two the cards isn't a big problem. They become a big problem when fighting poison decks, though.)

I suppose a couple mediocre poison cards don't hurt, just to keep people on their toes, though. Just nothing in the vein of Scars of Mirrodin. Also, cards that poison yourself without using Overdose makes sense as well. Perhaps a creature that whenever it deals combat damage poisons you? Or a Lich variant that stacks up poison against you? I figure most cards that poison the caster should come with another drawback, like Overdose, or have the ability to knock you out all on their own.

Yeah, it's basically Counterspell until the 3rd cast or so. I like powerful commons. Every color will have a strong removal spell with overdose attached to it at common.

Sample catalyst design. Catalyst is not quite "discard a card"; I think that there is a big issue with running out of cards if it was. So I went for a lesser option, where you remove a card from your hand until it leaves the battlefield, letting you get it back. By design, most catalyze effects at lower rarities will be permanent upgrades that give the creature more evasion or make it harder/disincentivize killing it, to make the decision have a bit more weight. Using a combat trick or a high cost spell is nice, but if your creature gets Pacifism'd or is relatively ignorable - is it worth it?

You're right; I see it similar to how Kabuto Moth looks weak and useless at its cost but it turns out that every deck wants it. I see it as a skill/experience testing thing; might not be immediately clear that it's playable, but good draft formats have always had cards like that.

I originally had a lower cost, but my concern was that the overwhelming majority of times, you would want to discard a card instead of playing a removal spell/trick or developing your board, so I shunted the activated ability off to "mana sink if you have nothing else to do" land.

I don't think it's redflagged by conventional standards, though it may be a bit too "bursty" in power level. It's mostly so I can have a decent common-level finisher that dedicated decks might want to take advantage of and build around. Thanks for the comment!

I agree that this definitely straddles the line between common and uncommon. Two points in its defense:

1. There will be a higher concentration of artifacts at common and uncommon, as it's a subtheme of the set. This also functions as another way to trigger Reap, so I'm hoping players see it like that.

2. There's going to be a lot of cards that punish you for playing it incorrectly or getting wrecked in the process of playing it. It's something that I enjoy in gameplay and design, and it's something that I'm emphasizing in this set.

I'm definitely alright with upping the cost and power on this though. If it turns out to be not what the Reap deck is looking for, I might change this to be a 6 mana 6/6 or 5/6 or something.