Sam Spines

Legendary Planeswalker - Spines

+2 Sam Spines deals 2 damage to any target. Destroy up to one target artifact.

+1 Target Desert becomes a 2/2 green Plant Elemental creature. It gains haste until end of turn.

-4 Sam Spines deals 5 damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures or planeswalkers.

3

Same challenge. You can either use Sam Spines, or create a new Cactusfolk planeswalker.

Merfolk and Wizards have some good options.

Svyelun of Sea and Sky comes to mind for Merfolk (if you can pronounce it), and Kopala, Warden of Waves and Emperor Mihail II are also good. Merfolk tend to be tempo-based with wide attacks; they can set up with lots of tokens and land control. A particular specialty is "flooding" lands into Islands to take advantage of islandwalk.

Wizards tend to want instants and sorceries, particularly card draw and counterspells. They have more of a control focus. Naban, Dean of Iteration, Naru Meha, Master Wizard, and Azami, Lady of Scrolls all interact with other Wizards, while Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Lier, Disciple of the Drowned, and Ertai, Wizard Adept focus more on the control angle (but are also somewhat higher budget).

Jobbradob, Focus of Hocus Pocus

Legendary Creature - Ouphe Rogue

Spells cost less to cast.

Whenever a player casts a spell, if that player has cast two or more spells this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on Jobbradob, Focus of Hocus Pocus and it gains hexproof and indestructible until end of turn.

3/3

"All the magic! More! More!"

Same challenge.

It's not just you. WotC has been emphasizing active game progression recently, and defensive permanents, especially damage prevention, tend to lead to game stagnation. Generally, people want to be doing useful things instead of not doing useful things, and permanents that prevent them from doing useful things gives the game a perception of being less fun.

They haven't completely gone away. Blessed Sanctuary, Reidane, God of the Worthy  ^Flip, and Nine Lives are reasonably recent, and stun counters are probably going to fill out this space in the future.

Hot Wheels FrightBike

Artifact - Vehicle

Menace

At the beginning of the end step, put a menace counter on each creature that crewed Hot Wheels FrightBike this turn.

Crew 1

3/3

Hot Wheels is owned by Mattel, one of Hasbro's biggest industry rivals and competitors.

Create a dance party.

Axiom Engraver

Creature - Phyrexian Wizard

Whenever you cast an artifact spell with mana value 2 or less, you may attach an Aura card with equal or lesser mana value to it from your hand.

2/2

The markings don't show who possesses the work. They show who the work is meant to possess.

Same challenge.

Baron of Betrayal

Creature - Demon Noble

When Baron of Betrayal enters the battlefield, untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste and trample until end of turn. If that creature has less power than Baron of Betrayal, it gains +2/+2 until end of turn.

3/3

The lowest ranks of the Infernal Peerage are filled by demons trying to expand their dominion by any means available.

Create an Izzet dragon modified by the Simic Combine.

There are several ways for a new set on Arcavios to involve Strixhaven that I would be fine with. Field trips, hands-on study, and even international travel are pretty common at all the schools I know of. There are some good historical sites nearby for the Lorehold students, Prismari could find someone hing to be inspired by, there's natural ecosystems for Witherbloom to study, and Silverquill and Quandrix could probably find some sort of cultural exchange.

If I had to pitch the next couple of Arcavios sets, I would suggest putting the next set in the area around Strixhaven and keep it involved. The third set goes further out, with less Strixhaven and more of whatever the focus of the sound set was. Keep expanding outward, using just enough of the previous sets to show the connection while continually revealing more and more of the world at large.

For a real-world comparison, let's replace Strixhaven with Harvard University. The first set stays on the college campus. The second set follows students to New York, the Atlantic Coast, and White Mountain National Forest. The third set builds off of those and adds Toronto University, the city of Montreal, and maybe something in the Appalachians, with only a handful of references to Strixhaven. Keep going outward until a full world develops.

On the other hand, most planes don't seem to be anywhere close to the size of Earth, and more than a few planes are defined by one location. I've gone off about Amonkhet before. Planes like Theros have a couple of suggestions that there's more to the world, but we just haven't seen it yet. Kaladesh could be much more than Ghirapur. Those two plus Innistrad, Tarkir, Lorwyn, and several of others could all easily fit on an Earth-like plane without actually coming into contact with each other, as demonstrated by Earth itself. (Let's ignore stuff like the Silk Road and various empires for the moment.)

Lich's Heresy

Enchantment

Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you.

Spells and abilities your opponents control can't cause you to lose life.

Whenever you cast a spell, you lose 5 life.

Most liches don't bother with religious rites. Those that do risk far more than their vital force, but receive near-invulnerability in addition to near-immortality.

Create a blue Dog.

Thran Vigil + Evolution Witness. There's gotta be something there. Put all artifacts and creatures from your graveyard into your hand and put that many +1/+1 counters on Evolution Witness.

Rhys the Seedsower

Legendary Creature - Elf Warrior Shaman

When Rhys the Seedsower enters the battlefield, search your library for a Forest or Plains card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then you may reveal your hand. If you reveal five or more Forest or Plains cards this way, create a 3/3 green Treefolk creature token.

1/1

Random challenge. Roll dice for color, mana value, and card type.

Color: 1-white, 2-blue, 3-black, 4-red, 5-green, 6-multicolor or colorless

Mana value: roll two dice and add them together.

Type: 1-artifact, 2-creature, 3-enchantment, 4-instant or sorcery, 5-planeswalker, 6 battle or legendary permanent

Yeva's Call

Instant

If an opponent controls more creatures than you, create a number of 2/2 green Wolf creature tokens equal to the difference between the number of creatures you control and the number of creatures the opponent who controls the most creatures controls.

If an opponent controls a creature with greater power than any creature you control, put a number of +1/+1 counters on target creature you control equal to the difference between that creature's power and the greatest power among creatures that your opponents control.

This templating feels like a digital/Alchemy card, or one of the really old cards that has two short sentences on the card and a full novel for official Oracle text. How do you translate "you get the same number of creatures as whoever has the most" and "you get a creature as big as the biggest creature" into Magic-ese?

Same challenge.

I'm starting to poke at options for Pauper Energy, but there doesn't seem to be a good wincon yet. Thinking about a core, hoping or gets something juicy.

Welcome to the club, Kryn_Winterbourne! There's a dedicated rules question area here.

Let's say you have a Walking Corpse. You cast Return to Action targeting it, and Return resolves. An opponent casts Disperse targeting the Corpse, and you sacrifice it one way or another.

The order of events, assuming nothing else happens, is:

1. You cast Return to Action on Walking Corpse. It resolves, and Corpse gets the "When this creature dies" ability.

2. Opponent casts Disperse targeting Corpse. This locks in that target, and it can't be changed later.

3. You sacrifice Walking Corpse. This triggers the "When this creature dies" ability granted by Return to Action.

4. The "When this creature dies" ability resolves, and Corpse returns to the battlefield.

5. The target for Disperse is no longer valid, so it fizzles. Because the returned Corpse is treated as a new game object, it's not considered to be the same object that was targeted earlier.

Basically, when a card moves from one zone to another (battlefield -> graveyard and graveyard -> battlefield, in this case), it "forgets" all previous effects it had. It's not targeted by Disperse, and it doesn't get the +1/+0 and lifelink anymore. Also, effects happen in the opposite order that they're used. The newest effect is the first to resolve, and the oldest effect resolves last.

Hubs added: Historic, Outlaw, Dead Guy Ale, Counter Burn

Hubs removed: Tokens (redundant with the checkbox selector)

More updates to come.

Baneful Banishing

Sorcery

Each opponent returns two nonland, nontoken permanents to the top of their library, then mills seven cards. If one or more lands are put into a player's graveyard this way, exile that player's graveyard.

Do not fear your shadow. Fear the shadow with no owner.

Is this akin enough?

Create a calm, introspective, generally un- pyromancer.

TypicalTimmy I'm assuming you've already checked out the rulings, so this is for anyone else with questions.

You can look at face-down cards you control on the battlefield whenever you want to. You can only look at face-down exiled cards if the effect allows you to look at them. Connecting the Dots has this in the reminder text, while Jester's Scepter has the "You may look at those cards" phrase.

From Ethereal Ambush: At any time, you can look at a face-down permanent you control. You can’t look at face-down permanents you don’t control unless an effect allows you to or instructs you to.

From Asmodeus the Archfiend: If a card is exiled face-down and no player has been given permission to look at it, no player is allowed to look at it as long as it remains exiled face-down.

Do you know what the cards you put in your graveyard and top of deck are when you choose? All the cards get exiled face down, and you never get to look at them.

If that's the intention, that you have to guess which card should go where, that's an interesting mini challenge. Looking before deciding would make the card more reliable.

Tribal hub got disabled a couple years ago when creature types and keywords got turned into the check boxes. Will be recycled as Kindred.

Big hub update tomorrow or the day after. Historic will be in there.