Redesign the Power 9 In A Balanced Way

Explosive Lotus Seed
Artifact
, , Sacrifice ~: Add three mana of any one color.



Essentially a Pyretic Ritual with color choice, but now it's on an artifact with its own share of caring for. It can also increase things like storm count without paying any mana.
Might be suitable for an uncommon.



Also, about this challenge as a weekly thing, it might be kind of alright for the coming 9 weeks (though I'd think people wouldn't be very enthused by having to redesign the small design space that all 5 moxen would provide). An alternative would be rebalancing/reimagining banned or restricted cards (in any format) so there is more variety and a longer lease on life for the thread.
Though, a new thread with a new title might be needed then. Which I would be willing to make myself if you dislike the idea.

Alrighty, I'll make an additional thread with any banned/restricted cards then.

No art, based on Mox Jet. Play on words, I think it's balanced, maybe a bit weak.

Bump?

Going to take advantage of spare time I have to emergency judge this, if that's okay. From here on, I think it's fair enough to errata this game so that the winner picks the next power 9.

Also, to extend this game's longevity (if anyone is interested in that) - after the first round of remixing the power 9, how about every subsequent post has to be "<power 9 card> with a twist?". Like "Timetwister but it dice rolls" or something.


viriss - A clean tie in to Dominara and essentially the concept of Amber Mox flipped on its head. I could easily see this being a cycle that gets played regularly in Legacy and Vintage lists. Not sure if they'd be safe enough to stay in Legacy long, though, just the fact it supports Artifacts is probably enough for Affinity lists to go wild with it.

melono - I honestly wouldn't be surprised if WoTC straight up makes this design someday. It's pretty straightfoward and works; not much else I can say about it.


pistonsmcgraw - Feels like this could've heavily benefited from some art or flavortext, but if we're talking from a pure mechanical perspective I find this really interesting. While it is extremely restrictive like Amber Mox it has the benefit of support a type of deck that would already want lots of artifacts (and improvise to boot) and enabling some neat acceleration later in the game. I do feel like it'd be tough keeping this in Modern but it's interesting enough to be worth a try.

hydraheadhunter - When I first saw this design I was worried it'd be very silver-border-y and hard to judge as "balanced" but you instead went and used the Untap symbol in a very clever way that brings the card closer to something like Simian Spirit Guide, a design that generally creates a lot of interesting gameplay and ebb and flows across formats. I feel like having it produce any color is a bit risky balance-wise given that comparison though - I'd probably have made it produce a color of mana not currently covered by Spirit Guides, or just . Otherwise, excellent innovation to make a card that could exist in a majority of competitive formats.

Winner: hydraheadhunter

A Skip in Time
Sorcery
Take an extra turn after this one.
Suspend 1 — , Skip your next turn. (Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay , skip your next turn, and exile it with a time counter on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, cast it without paying its mana cost.)

For those concerned about Cascade, the way those decks work usually means they'd rather hit something like Living End, Crashing Footfalls, Glimpse of Tomorrow that immediately allows them to win the game this turn or next turn. Cards like Gaea's Will that need some kind of additional support to make full use of the advantage provided generally aren't as effective as a result. That said, I do think this might get used as a sort of pseudo-haste granter in those sort of decks after you've resolved something that spams a bunch of big creatures.

Let's get to it then. I think we've only got one card left, actually?

Redesign Brainstorm to be balanced in a more recent format in a way that supports a less common subtype, type, or supertype. (E.g. World, Tribal, Arcane, Fortification, Trilobite, Warlock...)

Edit: Mixed up with Ancestral Recall out of exhaustion. I'll allow entries for both.

Bumping for additional entries.

Dead for two years...how time flies. I'll give this a week and judge any entries since then.

ZephyrPhantom You didn't announce a winner.

🤦‍

When in doubt...

Time Twistee
Creature - Veldalken Wizard
When ~ enters the battlefield, each player shuffles a card from their hand and a card from their graveyard into their library, then draws a card.
2/2