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Bend the color pie.
One of my favorite things to do is bending the color pie to its limits, how far have you bent (or can you bend) the color pie without breaking it?
I will like every entry and two cards from particularly interesting cards' creators.
Definitions.
Color pie break: A color performing an ability that violates one or more of its fundamental weaknesses or an ability the color actively refuses to have. For example, Faithless Looting breaks the modern color pie, "draw, then discard" or "loot" abilities are a blue thing now. Chaos Warp breaks the color pie because it is direct monored enchantment removal.
Color pie bend: An expansion of a color's abilities using tools that aren´t established as opposed to the color, tertiary/cuaternary abilties of the color or clever synergies it may have that result in ambigous results but don't break their core weaknesses. For example, red directly removing enchantments, this was bent with the creation of enchanter's bane. , Black never had on-battlefield enchantment removal, however this was bent with the creation of Mire in Misery.
I will like every entry and two cards from particularly interesting cards' creators.
Definitions.
Color pie break: A color performing an ability that violates one or more of its fundamental weaknesses or an ability the color actively refuses to have. For example, Faithless Looting breaks the modern color pie, "draw, then discard" or "loot" abilities are a blue thing now. Chaos Warp breaks the color pie because it is direct monored enchantment removal.
Color pie bend: An expansion of a color's abilities using tools that aren´t established as opposed to the color, tertiary/cuaternary abilties of the color or clever synergies it may have that result in ambigous results but don't break their core weaknesses. For example, red directly removing enchantments, this was bent with the creation of enchanter's bane. , Black never had on-battlefield enchantment removal, however this was bent with the creation of Mire in Misery.
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Comments
old card, thought I should put it here.
Freezing lands is a primary ability on Red's color pie, going after an ally color though not so much. But keeping to the conceptualization this is something alien.
How it goes about card drawing is also very Red with no real way of controlling what you get and the opponent gets something too so it doesn't even feel like this is really favorable, it just is.
edit: I also do have a black flicker, this one I think might be a bit too much.
Well, destroy effects aren't blue, at least not without Polymorph or Pongify effects, let alone wraths. Winds of Razor is pretty straightforward, I can't see the bend.
The other one is a mass blink, again, pretty straightforward, look at @armiesjoe 's black card, it achives a blink effect by combining two black abilities, you could easily do something like that.
Both your cards can be achieved but they need to go around a couple circles. For example, first card:
Winds of Razor Hail 4U
Kicker UU
Destroy each black and/or red creature and planeswalker. For each creature destroyed this way, its controller creates a 3/3 blue Lizard creature token. Then, if this spell was kicked, return all creatures to their owner's hands.
olde card
White unblockable(kind of)
Green clone
Black flicker(?)
Monoblue cards that feature straight-up destruction :
- Winter's Chill : Destroys attacking creatures unless the opponent pays {2} for each of those creatures. (1st print: 1995)
- Volcanic Eruption : Destroys Mountains; deals damage to creatures and players equal to the # destroyed. (1st print: 1993, last reprint: 1995)
- Viscerid Drone : Requires another creature and a swamp (or a snow-covered one). (1st print: 1996)
- Teferi's Response : Must counter an ability of a permanent that targets a land you control to destroy that permanent. (1st print: 2000)
- Siren's Call : Forces opponent's creatures to attack. Destroys any non-Walls that don't attack. (1st print: 1993, last reprint: 1995)
- Phyrexian Ingester : Exiles a creature when it ETBs. (1st print: 2011, last reprint: 2016)
- Musician : Puts music counters on things. Controller must pay 1 for each music counter on their creature or it is destroyed. (1st printing: 1995)
- Merfolk Assassin : Destroys creatures with islandwalk. (1st print: 1994, last reprint: 2006)
- Knight of the Mists : Must pay {u} when it ETBs or destroy target Knight. (1st printing: 1997)
- Hydroblast : Destroys red permanents. (1st print: 1997, last reprint: 2016)
- Giant Albatross : Destroys each creature that dealt combat damage to it the turn it dies unless their controller pays 2 life for each creature. (1st print: 1995)
- Frozen Solid : Destroys enchanted creature when it takes damage. (1st print: 2003, last reprint: 2006)
- Flash Flood : Destroys red permanents. (1st print: 1994, last reprint: 1995)
- Erosion : Destroys enchanted land unless its controller pays {1} or 1 life. (1st print: 1994, last reprint: 1995)
- Dwindle : Destroys enchanted creature when it blocks. (1st print: 2019)
- Blue Elemental Blast : Destroys red permanents. (1st print: 1993, last reprint: 2018)
- Acid Rain : Destroys all Forests. (1st print: 1994)
Monoblue cards that replace the destroyed card :
- Release to the Wind : Exiles anything and lets its owner recast it as long as it exiled. [okay, I didn't know which section was better] (1st print: 2018)
- Reality Shift : Exiles a creature; its controller manifests the top card of their library. (1st print: 2015, last reprint: 2019)
- Rapid Hybridization : Destroys a creature and replaces it with a 3/3 Frog Lizard. (1st print: 2013, last reprint: 2019)
- Pongify : Destroys a creature and replaces it with a 3/3 Ape. (1st print: 2007, last reprint: 2014)
- Polymorph : Destroys a creature; its controller reveals cards from their library until they reveal a creature card and puts it onto the battlefield. (1st print: 1999, last reprint: 2009)
- Ovinomancer : Returns self to your hand and also gives the destroyed creature's controller a Sheep. (1st print: 1997, last reprint: 2006)
- Hour of Need : Exiles a creature and replaces it with a 4/4 Sphinx with flying. (1st print: 2014)
- Curse of the Swine : Replaces creatures with... 2/2 swine [okay, Boars] (1st print: 2013)
- Blessed Reincarnation : Basically Polymorph with rebound. (1st print: 2015)
FWIW, the above lists are incredibly small compared to the lists that would be presented by red (in terms of creature destruction), white, and black, and outpaced by the number of blue cards that bounce permanents. As you can see, many of the cards that straight-up destroy creatures are incredibly old (the majority from the 1990s) and usually narrow. So while blue has always gotten the occasional removal spell here and there, in more recent days Wizards has pushed for blue to get removal that also replaces the destroyed creature. We're not in the 1990s anymore, so there is no reason to expect it to be safe to print a blue kill spell with no inherent drawback attached to it. BEB and Hydroblast might be the iconic blue kill spells, but they are from the 1990s. That's not good when it comes to design philosophy, because anyone aware of MTG's history knows that the color pie was not exactly established in its formative years.
I can't remember if I've ever seen a green card directly inflict -1/-1 counters outside of infect
(edit)-Thanks for the save.