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CardName: Fractal Framework Cost: 2U Type: Enchantment Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: You may have Fractal Framework enter the battlefield as a copy of any enchantment on the battlefield. Flavour Text: "I can do this all day." Set/Rarity: Name That Card None

Fractal Framework
{2}{u}
 
Enchantment
You may have Fractal Framework enter the battlefield as a copy of any enchantment on the battlefield.
"I can do this all day."
Updated on 03 Mar 2020 by jmgariepy

History: [-]

2020-02-27 04:13:00: jmgariepy created the card Fractal Framework

Yes, this is Copy Enchantment. There's a post on r/MagicTCG that asks the community what the worst card name is. And while that post has zero karma with only 40% upvote, it still picked up 42 comments. Reddit is weird like that (I think a number of people were downvoting OPs choice of Epic Confrontation, and not so much the question itself.)

With 8 points, Copy Enchantment took the prize. Which is a pretty good choice. Even the goofiest of names is bound to be defended by somebody. Copy Enchantment sounds like a playtest name that was never switched out. Personally speaking, I first thought it was from Tempest, and was startled to find it made its way into Ravnica: City of Guilds (I was thinking of Steal Enchantment.) Someone evidently decided to name Copy Enchantment after Copy Artifact, and nobody spoke up to remind everyone that this wasn't 1993, and that making a clone of an artifact may capture some flavor, but 'cloning an enchantment' didn't sound very magical.

So now the job falls on us. Find a new name for Copy Enchantment. You are welcome to imagine this card as either a replacement for the card name in Ravnica: City of Guilds, or as a functional reprint in an upcoming Magic set. Have at it!

Huh. Well, it got the name because Copy Artifact. But the creature version was of course Clone, the advanced version of that was Vesuvan Doppelganger - and the land version honours that with Vesuva. And... huh. I don't think we ever got a copy-planeswalker. We got a variety of things named 'mirror' though. Artifact eventually got a better name with Sculpting Steel. Vesuvian X is kinda out of it, if it's to be a new or Ravinica set, rather than a dominarian set.

And... that train of thought appears to have tootled back to the station and parked there. No derailments, not even any sparks. Darn it.

Let's try a different direction. What kind of set would a new enchantment copying go in? An enchantment-matters one. That would be Theros, then? Where enchantments are... well; constellation. They are literally stars in the sky. So... doubling star? That feels like it should be something a lot more impressive. And it doesn't look like there's a word for a star splitting in half because it doesn't happen. There are double stars - Epsilon Lyrae; but that doesn't seem useful? Well, gravitational lensing is a thing; but not a magic-sounding thing. "Lens" seems like a word-root I can make use of though. And I do need a verb because this is one of those 'secretly a sorcery' enchantments.

Oh! I can actually be sneaky there. "Epsilon" is the usual maths term for "Minimal difference". So that can kinda be used for indication of a copy. Ugh. My best effort then is Epsilon Lens. Which does at least sound like it could be a spell. Skies of Arcadia agrees. (And that would be another possible name, but I don't think it's much better. Still - at least we can steal the flavour text: Moons, protect me! - I guess this makes this a moonfolk tribal. On Theros. Ah whatever.)

Gift of Nyx.

Taking cues from theros seems sensible. Gift either referring to facility with enchantments or this specific enchantment

Rote Spellcrafting.

Art:

Rows of apprentice Wizards sitting on an assembly line.

Flavour text:

"Now make another 3,942 like that. Then maybe you'll be ready to try something original" --Vargus the Grey, last words.

I figure ravnica is perhaps one of the most factory appropriate planes, even more than the steampunk ones which tend to emphasise individual artificers.

I considered a pun like "Rote of replication" but decided that wouldn't help :)

Signature Spell

Flavour text: "I can do this all day"

"Sharingan Eye" if we're doing a Naruto fan set :)

Fractal Framework

Fractals are under-appreciated and underutilized.

A more generic but still magical name would bee Mirror Mysticism.

Let's thinking with the Ravnican theme though. The original flavor text references the Simic. Maybe mimicry alluding to convergent evolution? Enchantments never felt tangible to me. Ethereal Mimicry. No. Ethereal doesnt' sound good enough. Oh, I forgot mimicry implies something different from convergent evolution, but mimicry still fits here. Supernal sounds better. My suggestion is Supernal Mimicry.

2020-03-03 04:18:37: jmgariepy edited Fractal Framework

I really like Fractal Framework. There's a lot of good suggestions here, but I really feel that one drove home the idea of manipulating and replicating an intangible spell.

I really liked Signature Spell, too. But I admittedly liked it more for the name itself than for how it related to this particular spell. There's probably going to be a better fit for Signature Spell someday, so it makes more sense to hold onto that name. But I stole Jack's flavor text, since it's also a great match for fractal spellcasting.

(((NTC #022))) in a couple of days!

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