A callback to bosses from Challenge # 031.

Hmm... a little strong, if you ask me. If I play this on round 1, I can expect to get the rough equivalent of a Portcullis that returns gated creatures to their owner's hands out of it. In the meantime, while my opponent doesn't play any creatures, I can drain him/her. If I can't win by turn 5, when this card could potentially come back to bite me, then shame on me.

For what it's worth, I like the idea here. It's just, against a creature deck, you don't really care if your opponent gets back their graveyard... you've already won.

Yeah, wow, this is a bit crazy. A Visara with "only untaps every other untap step" is still far too cheap at 1 mana, even if it can be attacked.

I remember bosses as entering the battlefield under an opponents control, and you get the benefit when you defeat them, and hence having to be significantly stronger (since their deck may not be optimised to make use of the boss, but yours may be optimised to defeat it).

Ah, you're right. My apologies. This makes a lot more sense now that I see it from that angle.

I've still no idea how bosses should be balanced, they're just too different.

Oh, sorry, yes. That is rather hard to tell then.

Noteworthy: when you defeat this, the "entire graveyard" that gets returned will include Umbra Stalker itself, allowing it to be replayed immediately. If the other cards that get returned include Vampire Hexmage and at least two Dark Rituals...

LOL. Yeah.

I think we generally thought bosses would have to not work with other planeswalker answers other than damage, although this one is even more obviously problematic with Vampire Hexmage than the others. (I'm not sure if Bosses could ever be balanced enough to be really printed, but I think avoiding combos with planeswalker-destruction cards is one of the things that would need to be fixed.)

I have a feeling people proposed that Bosses would leave the battlefield any time they had 0 counters, but would only count as "defeated" if they were dealt damage (or perhaps combat damage) to remove the last counter. (If that wasn't proposed, it is now.)

Personally, I think that's just another example of why Vampire Hexmage was an example of poor design. To be honest, I'm not a fan of any card that does all of something, just because that something it does all of rarely matters. See also: Tormod's Crypt. If a card like Tormod's Crypt is worth printing, then it's worth printing for two mana, and can be used to exile four cards.

Eh; sometimes you really really need a hose.