Original card: Ironclaw Curse.

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• Changed from -0/-1 to dealing 2 damage to the enchanted creature when it enters the battlefield.
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• Added "Enchanted creature is a red Orc..."
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• Changed from "Enchanted creature can't block creatures with power equal to or greater than the enchanted creature's toughness." to "...can't block."
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I get what was going on with that text. This card is a callback to Ironclaw Orcs (and a little bit of Brassclaw Orcs and Orcish Veteran as well.) The point is that the Orcs couldn't block any creature that could kill them. They're cowards like that (or smart, as the case may be.)

The Homelands card just reads messy, though. If you don't get the narrative, you've got a head-scratcher on your hands. And even when you got that down, you're bound to occasionally forget the extra -1. Better to just say exactly what Ironclaw Orcs say. Cleaner that way.

Extra -1 to power because of power level and/or Melvin reasons. You decide. Making your opponent's creature an Orc? Priceless. ­

-1/-1 is certainly a lot easier to remember than -0/-1.

Okie doke. I needed to move a couple cards from uncommon to common, and both Orcish Mining and Ironclaw Curse made the most sense. The curse was originally common anyway, it just seemed weird enough to be an uncommon, so it ended up there. But now that it's officially a common, I got rid of the pesky 'can't block if its power is equal to X while opponent's power is equal to Y' line. Now it just can't block. Nice and simple.

Also, this originally gave -0/-1, which I bumped to -1/-1. But the more I thought of it, the more I liked -0/-2. In theory -0/-X is a black ability, but black never uses it. And toughness reduction feels very red. It's like a permanent form of direct damage. I'm starting to think -0/-X should be on many more red cards...

Tht's kinda the major difference between black and red though. Black saps, red zaps.

True. But red's a color that could use more mechanics, and this is a mechanic that black doesn't use. Plus no one seems to have a problem with red getting +1/-1. Seems like this is less of an issue of 'what does red do?', and more of 'what could red do?' I'm sure many players would disagree with me, though.

This is normally going to be used like a Shock anyway, so why not just make it deal damage to the enchanted creature when it ETBs, a la Earthbind?

I could, and I thought of it (Fatal Attraction also helps your argument.) I still might. Mostly, this is me running an idea up a flagpole and seeing how people react.

That said, Immolation is mostly just used like a Shock, but I always felt it was an elegant card. This isn't that. I only brought that card up as a reminder that this wasn't always such a weird idea.

Also, I should point out that this is removal that can hit things that red removal normally does not. Technically, anti-regeneration clauses pop up on red instants/sorceries often enough, but the extra text is a hassle. This also kills indestructible. Whether that's appropriate or not, though, is up for debate.

A weird aside: Toughness matters is a theme of this set. So, yeah, I do suppose there are occasions when you would use this to reduce toughness, but not to kill a creature. It could be shutting off an effect.

But if -0/-2 is too odd, I can just change it to damage. It doesn't seem that way to me, but this isn't a personal project.

I think this is currently just outside red's pie, it sometimes gets it on hybrid cards, but not usually otherwise. But the idea keeps coming back round, to me, it feels like an appropriate effect to bring into red. Maybe instead of saying "red is damage, black is toughness decreasing", say "red is damage and toughness decreasing, black is P/T decreasing".

Alternatively, give one colour "decrease toughness" and one "make toughness 1"?

Oh, +x/-x as a mechanical representation of "Is actually on fire" is fine. But this isn't quite that.