­Challenge # 167

An aggro 3-cost red common instant. Well, that's almost too straightforward. So I figured I'd work on a new drawback. This mechanic lets your opponent cast your spells, just like if they controlled the flashback. But the flashback is costly, and the base spell is strong.

Unfortunately, I get the impression a lot of Timmys would hate this mechanic. I'd recommend keeping keeping the mechanic isolated mostly to cards where your opponent usually can't benefit correctly. "Destroy target enchantment" for example, isn't going to do much for your opponents if you don't run enchantments. In fact, it would probably be a benefit, since now you get to watch your opponents destroy each other's enchantments.

Good name!

My instincts for burn spells are way out of date, I keep thinking this needs an advantage not a drawback :)

Hm, I wonder if it should exile? That's more fiddly, but it will feel bad if cards with this mechanic get milled or discarded.

Mm. I get how it's not so impressive when compared to Lightning Bolt, but not much is. Is Char still good? I suppose Char never targeted your own creatures, and that's a rather big drawback... even if you already roughly lost the game if you're playing aggro and your opponent has 6 land on the table, and casting a Char didn't win you the game on your turn.

Oh, also I was playing with an exiled version. But I ended up with the opposite problem. What if a 1-cost artifact kept exiling the card from the same player's graveyard? (Presuming, of course, that the card would go from being cast, to exile, to the graveyard when the spite cost is played.) Wouldn't that be terrible?

Obviously the answer is to add something akin to "If this card is exiled this way." But the exile version was wordier to begin with. So I just went with the simplest version for a common, so people could see the mechanic. The exile version is probably the better choice, though. I wasn't keen on having the players hide the card in their graveyard from their opponents... the arguments at tournaments alone makes it obvious to me that this couldn't really be in a real set as written.

Hard to tell - I fear this is the sort of card that'll be misplayed a lot. Like, are you even going to remember that you opponent used this by the time you have the mana to punish them for it?

That's a good point. And another reason why this should exile on resolution.

This mechanic could certainly use the "absolutely-removed-from-the-freaking-game-forever zone" from AWOL.

Not sure. Spitefire as an attempt :)

"What if a 1-cost artifact kept exiling the card from the same player's graveyard"

I think most similar mechanics just say "Exile. Blah may happen" in the reminder text, and leave it to the comp rules to spell out that the "from exile" ability is created when it's exiled. Maro's insisted that if you exile something to get rid of it, it's gone, even if it has rebound or suspend or whatever.

"Is Char still good"

I have no idea :) https://scryfall.com/search?q=%28oracle%3Adeal+oracle%3A4+oracle%3Adamage+oracle%3Ato+oracle%3Aany+oracle%3Atarget%29+type%3Ainstant+color%3DR+legal%3Amodern&order=released&as=grid is (I think) a list of 4 damage burn spells ordered by recency.

I think the constraint is something like "A fair price for 4 damage in a constructed deck is 2-4 mana, but in limited common burn needs to make 4 mana expensive or inconvenient so everyone doesn't first-pick it". So this is probably spot on for common, but would be balanced without any drawback at all at uncommon, but they try not to print those spells right next to each other so people don't get arsey about it :)