Welcome back! I was going for something a little more complex when I realized that this card didn't exist yet. Which is wild. That's a four-word open-ended common, which isn't going to be a good draft pick for some sets, but invaluable in others. (Sets where you need to sacrifice a land to activate a strong ability, for example.) (Oh, and the reminder text isn't perfect, but I figured it got the job done.)

But what is the card's name?

I fear this might be too confusing/advanced and/or too niche for common. It looks like an uncommon to me. (Of course, Teach by Example was the first common with its effects too, so...)

Simple effect, simple name: Imitate. (Which is also surprising that it's not a name that's taken yet.)

The standard reminder text (e.g. Disallow) seems to be "(Mana abilities can’t be targeted.)"

Oh, that's a great name for a "Copy target ability" ability. We should keyword that. (Also, given Fork etc. we sadly probably need "You may choose new targets for the copy" which makes this more than four words.)

I want to give the ability to a creature, call them "Sam" and have it in a pseudo-Casablanca set.
But that's really reaching for the joke.

So... perhaps go with something else in mtg that's known for copying - Vesuvian Meditation?

You're both right when it comes to templating. Edited the card, but didn't functionally change what it is doing.

As for commonality... yeah, you're probably right that this wouldn't be a common, Alex. I've always felt that abilities like copying things is grokkable, and that even if players don't understand all the ins and outs, that a card like this isn't really more confusing than Cancel. But Wizards don't see things that way.

I've been a little out of the loop, so I didn't even know about Teach by Example. Making this a sorcery probably would have made more sense as a first version of the card. But I try to avoid functionally changing cards if I can after I press 'post', so common instant it is.

­Dittoclip

Wondering what the most fun thing to do is. Magosi the Waterveil? Planeswalker ultimate? Wait for the opponent to cast a "win the game" ability? But none of those can be really broken because there's already several repeatable "copy ability" cards.

If it works, the FUNNIEST thing to do would be to draw the game by copying Isochron Scepter, but that doesn't actually help you :)

Sadly Isochron has a may clause, so this would get you an arbitrary number of magecraft triggers, but can't draw the game

My submission is Temporal Feedback, with flavor text "Roticapac rehtea eht otni kcab tog tnedor a, on ho!" - Nurap, Keraz Lar

Edit: Originally, I wrote how funny this would be with Lethal Vapors, but that's a non-bo. You'd be in control of the copies, so you'd be skipping all the turns. Ah well.

Oops, yes.

Now I look, I think most "copy ability" cards avoid letting you copy opponents'. So maybe that's the most useful thing to do with it, just have it as an answer in case opponent players any planeswalker ultimates.

That's roughly why I used to play one Rust way back in the day. It wasn't very good for anything, but it was cheap and tended to mess with the slow control decks. Sometimes I used it to counter a Jayemdae Tome activation, and that was fine. I used a card and to stop my opponent from gaining a card with . But sometimes it messed with the timing of a Nevinyrral's Disk activation, and my opponent who thought they had a sure thing was now knocked back on their heels. Admittedly, Crumble was probably the better choice, but Rust was more fun.

The poll is up! Vote for your favorite name here!

I think I already made a similar card but it was an artifact. I think it was called The Duplexion Okay it's not that similar but maybe some Latin would help? Duplexion is basically Duplex Complexion which means double system. Latin is very cool.

Agreed: Latin is a sweet language.

Also, nice card concept! Might be a bit over-costed though... I respect putting the cost so high to avoid broken combos, but frankly I don't see anyone playing this for so much mana when they could be playing big creatures or game-winning sorceries on similar turns.

Alex takes it this week with Imitate. Woot woot!

As for the high activation cost of the Duplexion, I get where some of that might be coming from. If the ability you are activating is a mana ability with a high output, the can get very nasty, very fast. As an example, this can theoretically activate Kaleidostone. The text on The Duplexion is unclear, since it doesn't seem to acknowledge that there are other costs besides mana costs. But if it said "without paying its costs" and the activation was , then Duplexion plus Kaleidostone = infinite colored mana. Rewash that mana right back through the Kaleidostone and activate... let's say Rod of Ruin 700 times. Kaleidostone is dangerous because it provides two pieces in an infinite combo engine.

See everybody in (((NTC #073)))!