Card of the Week Contest #377: Keyword Jamboree

Cascade is a keyword ability on or given to cards which cause you to cascade when you cast said cards. It's established, per Averna, the Chaos Bloom, that the act of resolving the Cascade trigger is 'to cascade,' and while currently there is no alternative method of cascading outside of casting card with cascade and cards given cascade, there's no reason an alternative means causing a player to cascade couldn't be established.

So while it's an extension of the design space, I wouldn't call it too great a reach to require reworking.

I agree that "whenver you draw a card, Annihilate 2" would be nonsensical, but it's not really a good analogy. The problem with the Annihilator example is in the reminder text: Whenever this creature attacks, defending player sacrifices N permanents. When you draw a card, there isn't a defending player, and so the verbage doesn't work because it doesn't have all the information necessary to function. 

Let's look at the cascade reminder text: When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card whose mana value is less than this spell's mana value. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost if the resulting spell's mana value is less than this spell's mana value. Then put all cards exiled this way that weren't cast on the bottom of your library in a random order. The information cascade needs to function is a number, specifically a mana value which my card's design provides when the trigger happens, and so the analogy doesn't hold water.

If you wanted to make your example work, you'd probably do something along the lines of "Whenever an opponent draws a card, annihilate 2 as if they were the defending player." This would be a sensical rules text. It'd be a pretty silly rules text, because the point of keywords is to take a complex or common game mechanic and make it easier to understand, and the alternative "Whenever an opponent draws a card, they sacrifice two permanents," is just infinitely cleaner.

Let's then apply that same standard to my Maelstrom Cataraman: assume that the gameplay I want the card to produce is immutible: That platonic of the wording on the card, I want the card to function exactly as it currently does.I can either write it as it was:


or I can remove the cascade keyword:


These are the only two options to get a stand alone card that functions exactly as my submission does. Do a little harmless anthimeria and action an ability, or put that ability absolutely massive reminder text directly into the text box. I mocked up what the second option would look like, and I want you to honestly tell me which you'd prefer to play with or against (To Be Clear, I'm not changing my submission to this mock up. I'm just posting it as part of the point).