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Say you could go back in time, and possess the bodies of various Magic staff members. As cards float across your desk, you use your knowledge of broken, crappy, or otherwise annoying cards to make one (and only one) last-minute change to each card (mana cost, rules text, power/toughness, etc.). What would those changes be? (While not strictly forbidden, it's kind of pointless to make a fixed version of a card that's already been fixed, like Lightning Bolt being reprinted as Shock.)

Hymn to Tourach

Why: For 2B, black gets "Target player discards two cards" (Mind Rot), for BB it gets "Target player discards two cards unless he or she discards an artifact card" (Wrench Mind), and for 1B it gets "Target player discards a card at random" (Specter's Wail). Hymn to Tourach is just way overpowered for that cost.

The Fix:
Hymn to Tourach BB
Sorcery
Target player discards two cards unless he or she discards a card at random.


Great Wall

Why: There are currently four (legal) cards in the game that have plainswalk, and a couple that can give a creature plainswalk. Also, allowing the creatures to be blocked does little to nothing; an enchantment this narrow should at least be able to DEAL with the creatures that have plainswalk.

The Fix:
Great Wall 2W
Enchantment
Creatures with plainswalk can't attack.
W: Target creature gains plainswalk until the end of turn.

I think that Grindstone would be an excellent card to reprint for Alara block to hose the hybrid theme in Shadowmoor. However, we don't want third turn Painter's Stone decks running around Standard, do we?

The most obvious fix for Grindstone is to have the ability repeat once. It's possible such a card might be printed, but it would be rather wordy, a bit confusing, and boring.


Here's the card I think they should print:

Mooby's fix for great wall deals with more than just the cards in magic that naturally have planeswalk and the cards that grant it. I think it would be a bit too powerful for limited, even in an uncommon slot.

Great Wall is a giant pile though, and definitely the worst of its cycle.

Mooby, you should do the rest of the cycle.

I'd link to Ben Bleweiss' article about the worst 100 magic cards of all time and their fixes, but I don't have it open and don't have time to find it right now.

You can fix cards on either side of the spectrum. I agree that Great Wall is hardly worth it and a fix of the card will probably never get printed. Bad card fixes hardly ever do. Most of them, including Mooby's Great Wall, would probably be limited bombs or at least high picks, but still too weak for constructed.

The point of fixing is to make the card balanced and unambiguous. Ben bleiweiss did this for many of the cards on his list of the 100 worst magic cards of all time.

Unlike bad cards, good, overly broken cards usually earn reprinted fixes. Necropotence, and it's "fix" Yawgmoth's Bargain(which, in turn, had to be and was fixed), for example.

In his list, Ben includes fixes which have seen print. While they don't see print as often as fixes for good cards, there is a point to fixing bad cards.

I'd rather see them broken as is, but that's not always possible.