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Original Card: Irini Sengir ­

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• Changed from uncommon to rare. ­
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• Changed from to . ­
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• Changed text from "White/green enchantments cost more to cast" to "Whenever a white/green enchantment enters the battlefield, each opponent loses two life." ­
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• Increased toughness by +0/+1.
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Edit: Most of the following conversation was about my first idea... an attempt to make Irini blue/black and squeeze the card Aura Flux on her.

All this color hate. I hate color hate. But Irini was terrible, and needed an update.

For what it's worth, I changed Irini to blue/black before I even added the Aura Flux to her. Taxing made more sense with a splash of blue (white would have been better, but a white creature hurting white... wouldn't be flavored like Irini.) That Aura Flux could be a disaster... but it really needs to be played against a specific deck to get any mileage.

My biggest regret is that this was a black answer to some enchantments, and I took that away. But... it was a black answer to enchantments. And it didn't really try to solve the problem in a black way. So I'm not that sad...

I wish you would link to the original cards in your first comment, because I'm unfamiliar with most of them and then I have to look them up on Gatherer.

I would say that this is not within the modern color pie.

Try "counter it unless they pay 2." That way it had a blue ability and a black ability.

Good idea Dude. Will do.

Link: You're right. Even with Dude's suggestion, I don't think Aura Flux is in modern blue's color pie. That said, I can't really think of a decent alternative without fundamentally changing the nature of Irini Sengir. I'd sure love to hear a better idea than this one. (Oh, hold it... I could make it a loss of 2 life instead of a payment of . That gives us countering for blue, and loss of life for black. I'm just going to go ahead and credit you with this idea. Thanks Link!)

By the by, I'll be adding links to the original card with the next card. I didn't want to focus on what the card used to look like... but I didn't really think that thought through, either. Kind of a dumb idea, really, telling people the changes, but making them go off site to look at the original...

I've also been wishing for a link to the original cards in the comments. Is it okay if I edit some of the "Changed" comments to add links to the originals?

I'd say yes, but I'm just going to go back and do that myself. No need to labor you with more work, Alex. ;)

Added Dude and Link's suggestions, so the card now feels like a black and blue answer to enchantments. I also removed the reference to black and blue in the second line, so now this is more a hose for all enchantments, but hurts green and white a little more. I much prefer Elephant Grassing to a straight hose, yes.

Also, set this back to 4 mana. I feel bad for Enchantress decks that ram themselves against this card, but them's the breaks I guess. Irini won't win you the game if your opponent is just playing a couple Mind Controls, but at least she's helping in some way.

Some questions: Is it important for this creature to say "Enchantments your opponents control"? Does the fact that this card is rare exclude it from NWO shenanigans? If changing the card to only affect your opponent also caused the casting cost and power/toughness up one peg (probably and 3/3) would that be a deal breaker for you? Did Pete Venters base his portraiture of Irini Sengir on a blow-up doll?

I said before that this isn't within the modern color pie. The first ability is pretty much okay, but the sacrifice ability doesn't feel right at all to me.

Hmm, yeah, I can see your point. Cards like Relic Bane don't tend to give the controller a choice... they just lose 2 life. I'm still not sold that the controller can't have the choice, though.

I just took a look through the cards of Modern that include the words "pay or sacrifice". As expected (and discounting cards with upkeep costs) White is in charge but only has two cards: Spelltithe Enforcer and Soul Tithe. Black comes in second with one card: Indulgent Tormentor. Obviously, the Tormentor deals with creatures, and Irini with enchantments. I only brought that up because I could see how someone could argue "Black doesn't give you the option. It just kills you." At least that part isn't true.

Hmm... this is tricky. I could argue that Black/Blue can't force you to sacrifice that enchantment... but if I upped the life loss to 30 life, then it's obvious that's what's going on. More weirdness: I could switch this card to be Black/Red and change the life loss to damage and claim I was just exploiting the punisher mechanic. I wouldn't. Irini isn't flavored that way. It's just an observation.

It's a shame I can't just make the card Black/White, since it's hosing white. Hmm...

Well, I guess the best way to solve the disagreement is to just cut the second line since it never was a part of the card anyway. That means, though, that's I'm back at square one with this card and need to find another way to make it relevant. Ah well. I'm sure I can think of something else... just not tonight.

There's also Kataki, War's Wage.

And Magus of the Tabernacle.

How about making this monoblack with "Whenever a player casts a green or white enchantment spell, that player loses [some, maybe 5] life"? Seems closer to the original card, closer to the modern colour pie, and clearer in that it's a black hoser for rather than a hoser for .

Mostly, I'm just not a fan of color hoses, especially at rare. A person should always be excited to play their rares... though, that may never happen with Irini anyway. She sure is a Spike.

Though, to be honest, color hosing is likely where she's heading. I can only 'fix' so much of a card before they become unrecognizable. I just haven't given up on finding the niche with this card yet.

As an aside, this card ended up multi-colored kind of by accident. I was reaching for something that doesn't exist anymore. But I am looking to make a few more rares multi. I figure if cards like Truce and Reveka, Wizard Savant are getting the multicolored treatment, then, ideally, I'd like to see one of each color combination pop up (though, that may prove too ambitious a goal.) I probably shouldn't force Irini to jump through that hoop unless it's a natural choice, though.

I got an idea. Maybe something like this:

Whenever a green and/or white enchantment enters the battlefield, each opponent loses 2 life.

Still a hoser, but now it's also a build around me card. I did toy with the idea of 1 life for any enchantment and 1 life for green and 1 life for white (for a potential total 3 life per G/W enchantment) but that's probably veering too far from the original.

Oh, I like it. Spike can sideboard it, Johnny can build around it.

What happened to the templating here? Your phrasing in your comment 4 days ago was right, but the text box seems a bit garbled.

Some of the old words were still kicking around in there. Editing.