Parallel universe: old cards if they have been made differen

[0rion79]

Especially after discovering some of the newest cards, I've reinforced some doubts that I always have had about some very lame cards from Unlimited to Homeland sets. Very often, in fact, I've seen very nice cards made horrible by lame attempts of not making them too powerful. The peak of this process has been with Homelands, but what if they have bade them different?
Today I have some free tie, so I post this list that I was writing from quite a long time, as long as ideas where coming by. Here is what I would have made different...

Unlimited
No much fun here: this set holds several cards that have already been updated during years: some sample may be:
Animate Wall in Rolling Stones
Aspect of Wolf in Blanchwood Armor
Black Ward and other wards in Cho-Manno's Blessing or Flickering Ward
Castle in Parapet
Crystal Rod & Co: in Kraken's Eye & co.
Craw Wurm in Yavimaya Wurm
Ironroot Treefolk in Blanchwood Treefolk
Tranquillity in Back to Nature
Untamed Wilds in Kodama's Reach
Farmstead in Ajani's Mantra
Wall of Wood in Tinber Wall and many others.
Many others would just be nicer with a better casting cost, while I would have made different:
Pearled Unicorn: has banding
Gray Ogre: has haste
Celestial Prism: CC=2, 1: add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool.
Orcish Oriflamme: costs 1R. If attacking creature is an orc, it gets +1/+1 instead.

Arabian Nights
Abu Ja'far: has poison 1. Then, same as Aladdin (see below)
Aladdin's Lamp: CC: 3. it comes into play with 3 wish counters. Whenever the lamp has no counters, sacrifice it. Choose one and remove a wish counter from the lamp: C 1) 3,T: search for a creature in your library and put it in your hand. If it was a djinn creature, put it into play with no summoning sickness. instead 2) X,T: draw X cards from your library and choose one. Put that card into your hand and put the other ones on the top of your library, in any order. 3) 3,T: gain 10 life.
Aladdin, Ali Baba and Ali from Cairo: each has "whenever you controll two or more of this permanent with the same name, sacrifice all but one of those permanents" later evolved into "Legendary creature".
Bazaar of Baghdad: draw 2 and discard 2. OR... Add 1 mana to your mana pool.
Diamond Valley, Island of Wak-Wak and Oasis: in addition to their effect, they may also add 1 generic mana to your mana pool.
Camel. Banding, 1/1. Protection from Lands. Each creature banding with Camel, including camel itself, shares protection from lands and all other static ablities with each of the banding creatures.
El-Hajjaj: 1B, 2/1, lifelink.
Erhnam Djinn : 5/5, same ability (have never understood why green had to have smaller creatures than Black)
Jandor's Ring: CC2,0t: put the card you have just drawn on the bottom of your library. Draw a card.
Junun Efreet: upkeep 1 Black, not 2.
Mijae Djinn and Mijae Efreet: almost the same but if you loose the toss, they get -3/-0 or -0/-3 rather than not attacking or not blocking.
Pyramids: CC:4. Return a land from your graveyard to play. 2: destroy target enchant land.
Serendib Djinn: at the beginning of your upkeep, you may choose to sacrifice it. If you don't, it deals 3 damage to you unless you sacrifice a land.

Antiquities
Argivian Blacksmith: your artifacts cost 1 less to play. T: regenerate target artifact. If it is an artifact creature, put a +0/+1 counter for each damage received this turn.
Argothian Pixies and Argothian Treefolk: protection from artifacts.
Artifact Blast: in addition to its original ability, Kicker: 2R destroy target artifact.
Circle of Protection: Artifacts. Activation cost is 1.
Citanul Druid: CC G.
Coral Helm: 0, discard a card from your hand. Put x +1/+1 counters on target creature, equal to that card casting cost. If the cost is 0 or is a land, put a +0/+1 counter instead.
Detonate: in addition, if that artifact has no casting cost, X is 0.
Dwarven Weaponsmith: T, sacrifice an artifact. Put x +1/+1 counters on target creature, equal to that artifact casting cost. If the cost is 0, put a +0/+1 counter instead.
Gaea's Avenger is 2+X/2+X
Goblin Artisans: same ability without tapping. If you loose the toss, then return that artifact to your hand.
Martyrs of Korlis, Human Soldier, 3/6 vigilance. Text is "all damage done to you by artifacts" so that it can be used with Artifact Ward.
Mightstone: your attacking creatures get +1/+0
Mishra's War Machine: like Masticore
Primal Clay: in addition "during your upkeep, you may pay 1: if you do, choose a new form for primal Clay"
Tetravus: tetravites have "Haste".
Urza's Avenger: 0 "gets a -1/-1 counter until end of turn and gains..." + "1: remove a +1/+1 counter from Avenger"
Urza's Miter: 1: draw a card. Use this ability once whenever an artifact you controll goes to the graveyard from anywhere. If it is removed from the game, draw 2 cards instead.
Weakstone: opponent's creatures get -1/-0.

Legends:
Rampage Ability is "whenever creature with rampage is blocked, it gets +X/+X, where X is equal to the number of creatures that are blocking it multiplied by the Rampage value". So, it works even with 1 creature.
Legendary creatures are all useful and with a CC no greater than (Pow+Thg/2)+1
Adventurers' Guildhouse and similar lands are replaced by a new land: Valley of Kings. All Legends have banding.T: add 1 to your mana pool. 2T: Return target Lengend from your graveyard to your hand.
Frost Giant and all creatures with Rampage also have trampe and a total casting cost equal to their power +1.
Akron Legionnaire is 8/6 trample with 7W, same ability.
Angelic Voices: replaced with Glorious Anthem.
Anti-Magic Aura: destroy all enchantments and remove all counters from target creature. That creature gains Shroud.
Beasts of Bogardan: 2RR, 4/2, same ability.
All Elder Dragon legends cost 4+ one mana of each of their original colors, don't have any upkeep and have protection from each "enemy" color. New Abilities:
Arcades Sabboth: in addition, banding. Creatures you control get +1/+1, vigilance and lifelink.
Chromium: looses rampage, has Shroud. Whenever Chromium deals damage to a player, you draw cards equal to half of its power, rounded down.
Nicol Bolas: already fine, has trample.
Palladia-Mors: in addition, 1G: regenerates. 1R: looses flying. All creatures able to block Palladia-Mors must do so. Rampage 3.
Vaevictis Asmadi: has trample.
Elder Land Wurm: same ability, Flash, CC 3W.
Elder Spawn: 6/6 with 4UU, protection from Red.
Gabriel Angelfire: 5/5 with 4WG, protection from Black, flying, first strike, trample, vigilance, lifelink. 0: becomes only white or only green until end of turn.
Headless Horseman: zombie, has First Strike
Raging Bull: has haste
Legendary lands: they all have "shroud".
Karakas: already fine
Hammerheim: T: deals 1 damage to target creature. It looses any landwalk ability and can't regenerate this turn.
Pendelhaven: target creature gets +1/+1. If that creature is 1/1, it gets +1/+2 instead.
Tolaria: T: if target creature deals damage to a player this turn, you draw a card.
Urborg: target attacking or blocking creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn and looses first strike and swampwalk.
Hunding Gjornersen... no ideas
Hyperion Blacksmith: T, tap or untap any artifact your opponent controls. Artifact tapped in this way have no effects.
Ivory Guardians: 4/4 with 3WW, same ability.
Jasmine Boreal. Has First Strike, Vigilance, Protection from Black.
Johan: each of your creatures gains vigilance, haste and trample.
Kasimir the Lone Wolf. 5/4 Protection from Red. Comes into play with a 4/4 wolf token, with Protection from Red and First Strike.
The Lady of the Mountain: trample, forestwalk, mountainwalk, protection from Blue, can't be countered.
Lady Orca: 4/4, T: destroy target non black, non-artifact creature.
Livonya Silone. Non-basic landwalk. Whenever she deals combat damage to a player, tap a land opponent controls and gain control of it until you control Livonya.
Lord Magnus: when declaring blockers, opponent's creatures loose any landwalk ability, while your creatures gain "web" and are considered colorless until damage assignment.
Marhault Elsdragon: trample, rampage 3. RG: target creature must block marhault Elsdragon.
Master of the Hunt: into Master of the Wild Hunt
Mold Demon: you may pay 2BB and sacrifice two lands to play MD, instead than paying its standard casting cost.
Moss Monster: treefolk. 4/6, 1G: regenerates.
Osai Vultures: whenever a creature goes to the graveyard, put a copy token of Osai Vultures into play.
Pavel Maliki: 5/4 trample. B or R: +1/+0
Petra Sphinx: aslo, has flying.
Pixie Queen: 1G: target creature has Flying. If target creatures has already flying until end of turn, it also gets +1/+1. If target creature is a Pixie, it also gets Protection from Black.
Presence of the Master: also has "sacrifice PotM", remove target enchantment from the game.
Princess Lucrezia: 2/4 with 1BU. Your black spells cost B less to play, your Blue spells cost U less to play.
Ragnar: same ability with only U or G or W
Ramirez DePietro: has Gaea's Avenger and Citanul Druid abilities at once.
Ramses Overdark: 4/4. Bury targer creature if it has been target of any spell or effect this turn, or if it has an enchantment on it or if it has any counter on it.
Relic Barrier also has "artifact tapped in this way have no effects".
Righteous Avengers also have First Strike and cost 2W.
Riven Turnbull is 3/4 with 2UB and has "whenever any opponent would draw an extra card, you also draw that many cards. Wheneve a permament you control is destroyed by an opponent, that opponent sacrifices a permanent of the same type."
Segovian Leviathan is 4/4 and also has Trample.
Sir Shandlar of Eberyn has "protection from Black. Your other creatures get +1/+2"
Sivitri Scarzam: has fear. Whenever it deals damage to a player, that player discards a random card.
Sunastian Falconer is 4/4 with 1RG and has "All of your spells cost 1 less to play and any activation cost is reduced by 1. Creatures with flying cost 2 less to play instead."
Tetsuo Umezawa has no activation cost.
Tobias Andrion has Protection from Red and has "whenevr target creature deals combat damage to a player, you may draw one card" (as Coastal Piracy)
Torsten Von Ursus has Whirling Dervish ability.
Ur Drago.. no ideas (has no flavor text as inspiration)
Wood Elemental: 1/1. When it comes into play, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each forest you control. Whenever you play a forest, add a +1/+1 counter to it.
White Mana Battery and other mana battiers cost 1 less to play and to activate.

The Dark
many of the cards here are so lame that are not even worthy of being mentioned. Many of them (as Knights of Thorn or Murk Dwellers) would be much nicer if they cost 1 less to play, and often with a better art. But...
Dust to Dust: remove up two artifacts from the game.
Marsh Viper: 1/3 with 2G, stoning, poison 2.
Orc General: orcs you control have +1/+1 and trample. Sacrifice a goblin or another orc, all your orcs get an additional +1/+1 until end of turn.
Sisters of Fire and Brothers of Fire cost 2R.
Squire has Banding. If it bands with a Knight, that knight gets +2/+2.

Homelands
Same as The Dark: many cards would just benefit from a lower Casting Cost and most of them have already be-reprinted. Especially...
Serra Aviary: 1WW, all your creatures with flying get +1/+1 for each creature with flying you control.
Baron Sengir: CC 4BB, in addition: "Protection from Black. 1B,T: deals damage equal to its power to target creature. That creature deals damage equal to its power to Baron Sengir."
Chandler & Joven: 3/4 with 3R. Choose from R: destroy target artifact/non-artifact creature. 1RR: gain controll of target artifact/non-artifact creature.
Daughter of Autumn: prevent the first damage dealt to any colorless, white and/or green creature you control and/or to yourself. W: prevent 1 damage dealt as above.
Eron the Relentless: just a bit cheaper.
Ihsan's Shade: CC 4BB, would like to find something closer to its flavor text but can't think to anything good
Grandmother Sengir: flying, 2/4. 1B: regenerates. 1BB, T: deals X damage to target creature or player equal to the number of swamps you control. You gain that much life. Creatures damaged this way also get a -1/-1 counter.
Irini Sengir: flying, 4/4. Any white or green spell cost 3 more to play. White or green enchantments with an activation cost, need 3 more to be activated. (a super- Gloom)
Hazduhr the Abbot: all non-red, non-black creatures you control can't be the target of black or red spells. Damage dealt to them from black or red non-creature spells is halved, rounded down.
Rashka the Slayer: 3/4 with 3WW. Web, Vigilance, First strike. 1WW: Rashka becomes colorless until end of turn. Whenever Rashka kills a black or red creature, put a +1/+1 trophy counter on Rashka.
Reveka, Wizard Savant: 2/4 with 2UU. T: deals damage to target creature or player equal to its power. Damage can't be less than 2. If a creature is destroyed in this way, untap Reveka.
Soraya the Falconer: as usual, but all birds get banding as static ability.
Veldrane of Sengir: Forestwalk. Each vampire gets "sacrifice Veldrane of Sengir, put +2/+2 counter on that vampire and gain 5 life".

[Gargaroz]

Nice ideas, some ones seems a bit "too good", but considering that a good 50% of the cards from these old expansions is utter trash with the actual standards, a pretty good work

[0rion79]

Nice ideas, some ones seems a bit "too good", but considering that a good 50% of the cards from these old expansions is utter trash with the actual standards, a pretty good work

Thank you. Just to know, what would you do consider as "too good"? Some years ago, I would have been refrained from thinking about such cards but, after understanding latest expansions' power, I felt as I had no limits.

[aww1979]

Alpha:
Ancestral Recall - Add 'the next spell that you cast is automatically countered' to it, to offset the ridiculous U cc
Chaos Orb - Change the activation to (XX),tap, sacrifice Chaos Orb: Each player sacrifices X permanents
Fastbond - Increase damage to 2 per land
Illusionary Mask - I love this card, but I can't think of any way to fix it without making cheating very easy. This card's errata is bullshit, especially when Phyrexian Dreadnaught comes into the picture
Mind Twist - Increase cost to XBB or X2B (Ice Age went a bit far with Mind Warp, though it was better than random discard at least)
Personal Incarnation - Really cool, but needs some other ability, maybe trample, though white doesn't get many tramplers
Power Surge - Bring back mana burn! Seriously, why did they remove it?
Shatter - Make it cost R so it isn't strictly inferior to about 10 other red artifact destruction cards
The Hive: Reduce mana costs significantly, especially activation cost. Maybe 3 to play and 3 to activate?
Time Vault: Give it shroud so you can't do stupid things like Voltaic Key. You could still find ways to untap it, but they would have to be nontargeted, like Turnabout, and that's not nearly so broken.
Tunnel: Change cost to RR and text to 'Bury all Walls' and name to 'Sapper's Tunnels' (though even then it's still pretty bad)
Web - Make it a common or make it a cantrip
Word of Command - Add 'Split Second' to it, so you can't just respond with your best stuff

Arabian Nights:
Aladdin's Lamp: Should cost about 4 mana to cast for that ability
Aladdin's Ring: Should cost about 4-5 mana to cast/activate
Ali from Cairo: Should be white (ala Sustaining Spirit or Worship)
Dancing Scimitar: Needs colourless Firebreathing. I mean come on, a sword that does 1 damage?
Island Fish Jasconius: Leave him with Islandhome, take away the other parts, give him Trample and Islandwalk, and reduce his casting cost to 2UUU or something.
Library of Alexandria: Make the draw ability cost 1 or 2 mana to use, and take away the mana ability.
Oasis: Change it to a comes into play tapped painland that produces R or W, and retains the tap to prevent 1 damage to creature
Oubliette: Makes more sense in blue, or maybe black/blue hybrid, but the casting cost of 3 is reasonable
Piety: Cost W only to cast

Antiquities:
Mightstone: Make it one-sided for you
Mishra's War Machine: Change the upkeep to 'must attack if able' like Juggernaut
Obelisk of Undoing: Change activation cost to 3-4
Orcish Mechanics: Change casting cost to R
Rakalite: Shield of the Ages is a reasonable fix of this
Staff of Zegon: Change costs to 3 to play and 1 to use, even that's pretty bad though
Urza's Avenger: Add more abilities as choices

Legends:
Adventurer's Guildhouse: (and friends) Give it a Tap: Add (1) to mana pool
Akron Legionnaire: Doesn't need any drawback at that casting cost
Axelrod Gunnarson: Change casting cost to 2RRBB and ability to 2 life/damage
Ayesha Tanaka: Change casting cost to UW
Bronze Horse: Give it banding and shroud instead of that weird ability, and make it cost 6
Cosmic Horror: Give it flying and trample
Dwarven Song: (and similar cards) Should cantrip and change creature type to Dwarf until end of turn (or Angel for Heaven's Gate, etc)
Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore: Remove negative effect from it
Falling Star: Just have it work on all creatures, rather than flip the silly thing
Fortified Area: This is just wierd, making your walls band? wtf? Make it give your walls double toughness or something.
Gabriel Angelfire: Add a whole bunch of modern abilities to the choices, like flanking, lifelink, shroud, etc, let it take 2 at a time, and reduce cc by 1
Ghosts of the Damned: Change it to -1/-0 counters
Giant Slug: Just give it basic landwalk of all 5 kinds for free
Giant Turtle: Should have more toughness, like 2/6 or 2/7 with that ability, when compared to things like Trained Armodon
Glyph of... (all 5): Make them able to target nonwalls, but still only blockers
Great Wall: Print some #&$%&*% plainswalkers besides Righteous Avengers
Halfdane: Let him take the best power/toughness on the board, for instance, take 6 power from Craw Wurm and 8 power from Wall of Stone to be a 6/8
Hornet Cobra: Needs something else, maybe doublestrike instead, since Elvish Archers already beat the pants off of it.
Horror of Horrors: This is cool, just needs a lower casting cost, maybe 1BB or BBB
Ichneumon Druid: Remove the 'other than the first' clause and/or make it cost GG.
Indestructibe Aura: Should read... Target creature gains indestructible until end of turn. (Well, duh...)
Ivory Guardians: Should cost 2WW
Jacques le Vert: Should pump all creatures. Though then he needs a name change, since in french it says 'jack the green'
Land's Edge: Already got fixed with Seismic Assault
Life Matrix: Remove the 'only during upkeep' and reduce cost to 3 to cast/use
Mana Drain: Should cost 3UU, to make it similar to spells like Desertion
Marble Priest: Drop cc to 4, and add some other cleric theme thing to it
Mold Demon: Either remove the penalty or make it bigger, like 9/9 or 10/10 (I mean hell, look at Doomgape)
North Star: Change tap cost to 1,T instead of 4,T and play cost to 3
Planar Gate: Reduce casting cost to 4 and make it affect all players (ditto on Mana Matrix)
Pradesh Gypsies: Change cc to G or activation to 0
Shelkin Brownie: Reduce cc to G and have it strip all forms of banding when tapped from the target
Spiritual Sanctuary: Just make it cost WWW and say: Gain 1 life during each of your upkeeps
The Abyss: Pillar Tombs of Aku seems a decent fix on this, though that might be going too far
Tolaria: Remove the upkeep restriction
Visions: Should cantrip. It would still be somewhat weak, but that's fair, given this is usually a blue (or occasionally green) thing
Wall of Opposition: Way overcosted. Change cost to 1RR or 1R and rename it 'Wall of Fire', and scrap that card
Wood Elemental: Where do I start? This is usually voted worst card ever, even beating Sorrow's Path. Make it cost G, and make each forest worth +2/+2 or +3/+3 would be a start, and maybe trample or something, too.

The Dark:
Carnivorous Plant: Erhnam Djinn schooled this thing. Make it 4/4 and not a wall.
Deep Water: I'm not sure what to do with this one, but it's pretty lousy as is. Maybe have it give a secondary effect requiring blue mana, like U: Target nonflying, nonislandwalk creature gets -1/-0 until end of turn
Diabolic Machine: Overcosted. Make it cost 5 and 2 to regen
Fasting: Scrap the stuff about counters and sacrificing it, and just make it into something like Words of War, only for life. (or does that already exist? I'm not sure)
Giant Shark: Wins lots of style points, but he should be like 6/6 if he's got islandhome at that casting cost, or else leave him as is and let him cost 3U
Goblin Hero: Makig him 1R for a 2/2 isn't an option, since WotC has made a big deal of never giving red a vanilla 2/2, so he needs an extra ability at 2R for 2/2, like first strike or vigilance.
Land Leeches: Needs more to compete with Elvish Archers, though at least it beats Hornet Cobra. Maybe have it give poison counters or do wither damage or something
Leviathain: Drop to 1 island to untap/attack, and have him enter play untapped.
Psychic Allergy: Sacrificing one island a turn should be sufficient
Riptide: Change it to green :p
Runesword: Turn it into equipment costing about 3 to cast and to equip
Sorrow's Path: Aieee!!! Change the penalty to just 2 damage to you, and let it produce (1) mana would help it at least make limited.
Whippoorwill: Change casting cost to 1G, change activation cost to just tapping it, and give the damn bird flying!

Those are the sets that I never got to buy in stores, as they were out of print when I started. I didn't bother trying to think of ways to improve vanilla stuff like Squire, though that could easily be done as well.

[0rion79]

Many are similar Lol. Anyway, I've seen some very good idea and didn't think about underpowering some cards!