Made using Midjourney. (Its ai, ik, plz dont hate... 🙏🙏🙏)

Because MTG needs more cute mouse cards.

Image is AI generated (Nano Banana).
Not sure if 5 mana is too much or too little.

I worry Dashie is overtuned and a flavor fail. Anyway, thoughts on these six?

My friends wanted me to play Yu-Gi-Oh, so I did this.

Open to suggestions for a flavor text.

Artwork is from deepai.com and card created on MTG cardsmith.com. I'm convinced that there is a way to be able to make a fair and balanced version of the original power 9 and I'm starting at the very top with lotus so here's the idea of taking away the colored Mana from it and making it to where it's an untapped effect that you don't have a way to be able to tap it. It's still free to cast and if you can use other mechanics to tap it such as improvise you can get the extra man out of it but it doesn't just generate it on its own. Let me know what you think.

My take on a more "balanced" lotus, which is of course an absurd undertaking.

I wanted to keep it in theme with the whole lotus thing of making 3 mana, but I think spreading it out over multiple turns is a more elegant way of doing it instead of a burst of mana. Fast and free mana is always a universally good thing in any form. Even an extra 1 can really speed things up.

Having it sacrifice itself in case of any [[Solemnity]] shenanigans, and exiling itself upon leaving the battlefield, would keep it from being recurred perpetually. Giving it a variant of shroud that also prevents it from being chosen for things like proliferate is to keep it in check.

I am doing a custom magic night for my birthday and I wanted to add this card to my deck. I understand that’s it’s good at a minimum. Likely a staple of the color combo if it was real. But would it be busted to have to the point of making the game feel one sided? I feel like I may have to make it 5 mana or add pips to the cost but I like the idea of a generic casting cost.

Testing some stuff.

After yesterday’s discussion about this card, I wanted to give it another pass with wording that works better within the existing rules. This version uses extra turns and skipped phases (CR 500.7 and 500.11). I also simplified the mana cost.

Much of the discussion around the previous version focused on “extra combat” being a red, or, at least, Boros, effect. Several commenters raised white’s potential access to extra combats and blue’s role in manipulating turns and phases. I’m interested in exploring that space, rather than treating this design as proof that extra combats belong in Bant.

So what am I trying to do? Experiment with combat as a defensive resource, or as a surprise finisher. What if an attack didn’t have to be so telegraphed? What should that flexibility cost, and what would we have to give up?

The original idea was to sneak in a combat phase before an opponent’s combat. It deliberately didn’t untap your permanents: you had to choose between using those resources on your own turn and keeping them available for a surprise attack or activated abilities during an opponent’s turn.

One commenter described Bant’s approach as “No, that’s my combat phase,” which I really liked. This version takes that idea further: you effectively “steal” your opponent’s combat, taking a combat-only extra turn before they get a shortened turn with just a main phase and an ending phase.

Whether or not the card is balanced, I’ve enjoyed the exercise: exploring a less conventional use of combat and thinking about how different colours might approach it.