CCDD 111418—learn a lesson

Cool Card Design of the Day
During the weeks between learning I'd made the top 100 for GDS3 and the initial design test, I designed and playtested a Magic world and a number of potential mechanics for it, knowing that work would either be directly relevant or at least good practice. One of the keywords I tested had been stewing in my head for quite some time.

Learn a lesson is a keyword action that causes players to draw cards and lose life. You can apply it any player or group of players, and scale it with plain English. "An opponent learns a lesson." "You learn two lessons." Etc.

There are a huge number of cards that could be functionally reprinted with it: Abzan Charm, Ambition's Cost/Ancient Craving, Asylum Visitor, Baleful Force, Bloodgift Demon, Caress of Phyrexia, Champion of Dusk, Corpse Augur, Cryptbreaker, Curse of Vengeance, Damnable Pact, Dark Prophecy, Dusk Legion Zealot, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, Graveborn Muse, Harrowing Journey, Hoarder's Greed, Kothophed, Liliana's Contract, Live Fast, Malakir Soothsayer, Metalspinner's Puzzleknot, Midnight Entourage, Mindblade Render, Minion's Murmurs, Moriok Replica, Night's Whisper, Ob Nixilis Reignited, Painful Lesson, Parting Thoughts, Phyrexian Arena, Phyrexian Gargantua, Phyrexian Rager, Promise of Power, Read the Bones, Sanguimancy, Seizan, Perverter of Truth, Sign in Blood, Skeletal Scrying, Succumb to Temptation, Toil, Vulturous Aven, and Wretched Confluence.

But my interest is in using it symmetrically like Seizan, Perverter of Truth, or Runed Servitor. Increasing the rate of card draw reduces variance and non-games, making more games more interesting. But if we played a variant where everyone draws two cards every turn, we'd find that's too much; we'd miss so many turns where one player pulls dramatically ahead, and the game would start to feel like a slog of trading creatures. That's why it's important that lessons aren't learned every turn, and that there's something helping to push the game toward its conclusion. The life loss seems insignificant, but can add up quickly, and more importantly makes players feel like the clock is ticking.

Here's an ambitious land cycle. It ETBs untapped, makes colored mana, and draws you a card. This is justified in three ways: It gives your opponent a card too; it costs you life; and the lesson is conditional. I'd want to playtest and tune this so that every deck running Forests isn't also running 4 of these. This is the kind of thing I wouldn't be surprised to see break in practice, but at least in theory, its symmetry makes it printable. The reason you have to control a Forest,  is that I want its player to have some control over whether lesson is learned or not, and so that you can't learn the lesson on turn 1, flooding the second player's hand, forcing them to discard.

Finally, here's one design interacting directly with our new keyword action.

Design a card that teaches a lesson.