For Challenge # 060. Originally, this was a blue creature that activated red mana to add the counters. I asked myself how I could introduce red in the cost, and blue in the activation, and decided to have this guy deal damage to yourself as well, ala Psionic Blast. Weird, huh? Probably only makes sense in the minds of a small number of players, though.

Mm, I usually like "Consider the tradeoff" effects; but this one strikes me as just too terrible a trade in most situations. I mean; cant I just have 3/3 firebreathing for that cost?

Sure, but that won't kill all your opponent's Birds of Paradise and Prodigal Sorcerers into the bargain. This is kinda like Ashling the Pilgrim or Electryte.

ah; I was somehow reading this as "All other creatures you control"

Yeah; this explodes the board. Ok; that's worth it.

This really should not be hybrid, in my opinion. In fact, I fail to see why it's blue at all.

I actually kind of agree with you Link. I think I like this as a blue/red creature because it matches a blue/red Izzet-ish ethos, not because the card is blue in any way. I tried making the creature blue only and the activation red only... but that just looks worse. The blue frame just doesn't look right for what it does.

I'm curious Link. I just dropped the cost of the card by one and changed +1/+1 counters to pressure counters. Does that help make the card feel more blue? Or is this card doomed to be mono-red?