Defender is Dumb

I'm back. That was fun. Anyways back to writing about my magic thoughts.

Defender is Dumb
    During Onslaught block, Imagecrafter exposed the fact that of all the creature types that exist in magic there were two creature types had rules attach to them, Legend and Wall. To remedy this Legends got the supertype legendary, and walls got the keyword defender. Initially I thought defender was the a ridiculous  keyword to give to walls. Walls weren't defenders! They were creatures that just happened to not have a means of locomotion. No one confirmed this, but I suspected that the reason that defender was chosen was  because it sound like a positive keyword ability, and market research shows that negative keywords don't  go over too well. They did state that one of the reasons that they chose defender was because they wanted to make walls that weren't walls from a flavor standpoint. I thought it was a valid point, and I begrudgingly accepted it. I figured that future wall of woods would be templated as, let's say, Elvish Protectors. However, that's not what has happened.
    Defenders are templated in several ways. Some are still just walls, like Overgrown Battlement or Æther Membrane. Some are actually defenders, like Stalwart Shield-Bearers or Hanweir Watchkeep. Some are slumbering, some are tethered, some are turned to stone, and some are just like to hang out. They do all have a common denominator they aren't going anywhere. Defender be replaced with garrisoned.

Mount

Came up with an idea for mounts in magic. Ride [cost] means "[Cost]: Unattach all creatures from ~this~ attach target non-mount creature you contorl to ~this~. Play this ability only when you could play a sorcery." and "~this~ gets +X/+Y where X is the power and Y is the thoughness of creatures attached to ~this~" Additionally, you hafta change the rules so that creatures attached to permenants don't unnatach, but instead creatures attached to things can't attack or block.

Riding Bear 1G
Creature - Bear Mount
Ride 1G
2/2

Back

Well my computer expolded, but now I'm back, writing out my magic thoughts till I leave. With Lorwyn they're introducing a mechanic that is as close to substitution as they've done. Whta's substitution you ask, well let me tell you. Back when Urza's saga came out I came up with a mechanic called subsitution. This is the original card I came up with:
Pack of Goblins 2RR
Creature - Goblin
Substitute, 1R - A wall you control
3/4
The idea was that the wall that you thought was a buch of wood was actually a pack of goblins. I immediately realized it was incredibly versatile. It had several "handles" you could tweak to get new permutations not to mention Subsituting opponents cards and "Building" legends. The people I told about it all liked it, and it even went into the last HGML set made before it dissolved.
I sat and watched magic sets come close to replicating it, from gating to morph to flip card, and now champion. While it is the closest to my original idea I'm hoping that it goes the way of offering with a small showing and a luckluster response. Mainly because it's not as good as substitution.

Modal -> Punisher

Modal ideas:
Choose One - do A; or do B; or do C Entwine C
Choose Two - do A; or do B; or do C; or do D
XC Choose X - do A; or do B; or do C
Cards in hand gain "Entwine C"
Choose one at random - do A; or do B; or do C
An opponent chooses one - do A; or do B; or do C
...But on a real charm not like Misfortune ...Hmmm ...
I wonder why the Punisher mechanic wasn't templated as an opponent choose modal in judgement?
Breaking Point 1RR
Sorcery
An opponent chooses one - Deal 6 damage to Target player; or destroy all creatures and they can't be regenerated.
Of course you can't errata to this because the decision is made while casting rather than resolution, and it really doesn't work the same in multi-player games. However, it would be fine for future punisher cards.

Shroud

Shroud, Pshaw! Sure Shroud makes sense for "Can't be target of spells and abilities" some of the time. Alexi's Cloak, Sure. Wispersilk Cloak, Okay. They are shrouded can't be be seen by some magical means hidden from plain view ergo you can't target them, but there are a slew of other reasons why things can't be targeted. Maybe you can see it but it's guarded. Maybe you can see it but you can't figure out where to hit it with the spell. There's also the case of Zephid where spells just don't like him. You know what's a great keyword that would mean "Can't be target of spells and abilities" ? UNTARGETABLE !!!

Dryad Arbor

Dryad Arbor is a Land Creature - Forest Dryad. I wonder why they did not make it a Land-Forest Creature-Dryad. It seems to me that the later is more intuitive to the uninformed reader. Additionally this means that you can't introduce new subtypes on dual type cards, because people won't know which is which. For example let's say I wanted a creature to have two subtypes Spirit & a new type Vision, but I also want to make it an Enchantment. If I print "Enchanment Creature-Vision Spirit" it's ambiguous as to whether vision is a creature type or Enchantment type.

YouTube

The future of Pro level magic lies in the hands of youtube. It's simply incredible. The video on demand is just like watching matches in real life, you don't like a match you go wander over to another table. This will give more exposure than ESPN2 ever could, plus it's hitting the target audience so much better.