Introductory thought: it's kind of interesting that a fetchland can be something like Terramorphic Expanse or Brokers Hideout, but the fetchlands are unquestionably that cycle.

I'm glad they exist, and I'm happy when they get reprinted. There absolutely should not be any functional reprints. In the formats they're legal in, color restrictions and requirements lose a lot of their impact. Boros Burn splashed blue and green just for Oko, Thief of Crowns. Add in stuff like landfall (wasn't Omnath, Locus of Creation around at the same time? Warp dem formats!) and revolt (Fatal Push) and similar effects, and fetchlands offer a lot of utility in a lot of different directions.

As a thought experiment, if every set for the next couple of years had the fetchlands cycle, and they were preemptively banned in Standard, how would that affect people's deck building patterns? Ignore the financial stuff involved with suddenly flooding the market with a scarce commodity for now. Would that make different formats more accessible?

The base power and toughness are the numbers printed on the card, so Destiny Spinner has a base power of 2. Mammoth Umbra gives +3/+3, so it raises Spinner's power to 5. Since its current power 5 is greater than its base power 2, if it deals combat damage to a player, Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar's ability will trigger and you'll draw a card.

DemonDragonJ That's more of a midrangey-controlly strategy. Combo decks also appreciate good defenses. Aggro decks really don't care about defending themselves; their goal is to make the opponent(s) lose as fast as possible. More moderate and aggressive midrange decks care about protecting themselves only until they can start pushing for a win, and they tend to rely on removal rather than denial. Tempo decks tend to use steady pressure and incremental advantage rather than develop strong defenses.

So while plenty of strategies and their players do care about protecting themselves and their permanents, it's not universal.

Spierce Bug

Creature - Insect

Wither

: Create a token copy of this creature.

1/1

Swarms of spierce bugs are attracted to bright lights, making them a common annoyance in Farocian forests.

Not really a character, but a common critter in a setting I'm working on.

Create a creature with base power and toughness 5/9.

If you want another kill combo for this deck, Fraying Omnipotence or Scourge of the Skyclaves makes a good (if mana-heavy) double hit with the Bloodletter of Aclazotz and Wound Reflection. Each player loses half their life, then each opponent loses the other half.

Andramalech Thanks for the support! I'd be honored if you used my deck as an example to get more people to try new formats, especially Pauper.

Maybe switch Aegis of the Gods for Crystal Barricade? No attacking, but that's not a high priority for this deck, and it can add another layer of nope with 4 toughness and creature protection. Or Leyline of Sanctity for a potentially free option (probably more of a sideboard card for this deck).

Crystal Barricade, Myrel, Shield of Argive, High Noon, and Final Showdown are all pretty new, and and have prominent Standard control decks. and would have an identity crisis if defensive strategies were reduced too much.

I don't think it's as much de-emphasizing defensive strategies as reducing stalemates. Between tournament time restrictions and the subjective "fun" factor, there's several reasons to avoid a board state where nothing happens. Going off High Noon, they're also including ways to break a deadlock within the cards that set the deadlock--Rule of Law that breaks its own parity. It should be possible to at least outline a dynamic prison deck at this point, something that keeps the board state advancing while still playing like a traditional hard control deck.

The game's not really here to model real-world military tactics. It's an entertainment product, so entertainment comes first. And as someone who likes control and prison effects, it's kind of a hard sell when the gameplay goes into stasis for more than a turn.

This was also when I started digging into the game. For the full list, it's

• 8th Edition

• Mirrodin Block

• Kamigawa Block

• 9th Edition

• Ravnica Block

• Coldsnap

• Time Spiral Block

• 10th Edition

• Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Block

• Alara Block

• Magic 2010

• Zendikar Block

• Magic 2011

• Scars of Mirrodin Block

• Magic 2012

• Innistrad Block (introduction of Modern format)

• Magic 2013

The initial Modern banlist was Ancestral Vision, Ancient Den, Bitterblossom, Chrome MoxGC, Dark Depths, Dread Return, Glimpse of Nature, Golgari Grave-Troll, Great Furnace, Hypergenesis, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Mental Misstep, Seat of the Synod, Sensei's Divining Top, Skullclamp, Stoneforge Mystic, Sword of the Meek, Tree of Tales, Umezawa's Jitte, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and Vault of Whispers.

Possible archetypes that I can see are Cawblade, Splinter Twin, Infect, Bloom Titan, Burn, Living End, Jund Midrange, Zoo, 12 Post, basically all the stuff that was popular in the first few years of Modern.

Is there a commander creature in this format?

Reprinted in Modern Horizons 3, and totally Modern-legal.

I guess I can't let this go by without an upvote, either...

How about Orim's Chant? Anti-spellcasting with an option for anti-attacking.

Mistvault Bridge is another on-color indestructible artifact land, but it enters tapped, if that's a concern. What's the intent behind Network Disruptor?

How well is Perplex working here? It's a good counterspell, but I think you might get more value from another source of repeatable life gain, or another way to protect Blood Researcher. That looks like part of the main win condition here, so getting it to trigger as many times as possible and keeping it around should be a priority. Is the blue splash helping the deck win?

The awkwardness comes from rule 103.2, the "can't overrides can" rule. You have to actually remove the "this creature can't block" ability. The best workaround I can come up with without a deep dive is

Creatures you control with "This creature can't block." lose that ability.

Basically what Coward_Token suggested.

Kcin That could work, but you would have to explain the custom keyword for an existing ability. Easy to do, like in the reminder text there, but still expect to remind people once in a while.

There's six copies of Fireblast and five Mine Collapses between main board and sideboard here. Maybe switch the extras out for more Goblins--something like Reckless Lackey or Fanatical Firebrand?

Renegade Druid

Creature - Human Druid

Whenever Renegade Druid becomes the target of an Aura spell, draw a card.

Whenever you or a permanent you control become the target of an Aura, Renegade Druid deals damage equal to the number of Auras on the battlefield to target creature or planeswalker.

3/2

Fugitive Druid got away from Volrath, ran into Lynde and Eriette somewhere, and discovered the glory of Uril. Still on the run.

Take two common cards from your favorite set/plane/block and combine them somehow. Try to avoid just adding the text and cost of a sorcery onto a creature or whatever--the inspiration is more important than a strict 1:1 fusion.

Balaam__ That was exactly my inspiration for the name, down to which Dies Irae (Verdi vs. Mozart) was the backing music.

Just got the newest Mages of Magic episode. Had a possible episode thought at the end--find like 3-5 online "What color are you" quizzes and see how much you agree with them and how good they are.

Ice Cauldron is a solid wall of text. Even though the updated text does a decent job of condensing it, the printed version is what the smaller font would look like with enough words. Let's say you made a creature with a list of common keywords and simple abilities that was as long as the Cauldron text. Even it could be parsed out easily enough, it would still be annoying to confirm every time that Alert Heedbonder and Labyrinth Raptor interacted with it, but Favorable Winds didn't.

What kind of ability would you expect to see that would need a smaller font? I can maybe see it being done as a one-off experiment, but The Reality Chip's typeline showed that even with reduced font sizes, text volume could cause problems in some languages.