Compelling ... or Just Weird?

So ... I made this thing in blue because I decided I wanted to try to get weird in blue, as you do:

So this crazy card started with the idea of allowing a player to clone a spell in a way that's different from forking or copying it as we typically see in blue and red. And it's a way to cast a spell in any graveyard in a mechanic that doesn't exile it (which itself is an odd choice because this set encourages exiling cards from graveyard).

I made that first part first, and then I realized that it also had to be castable without using that spell cloning ability. So this ended up turning into this weird modal spell where you can either replay a spell, or you can hang onto it and steal a creature.

So if it's not clear how it works: If you use the first part, Compelling Memory completely transforms into the targeted spell until the end of the turn (including casting cost and other features). So it loses the creature stealing text. Otherwise, you can just hard cast it for six mana to steal a creature.

This is one of those "I don't know" spells where I'm not sure it makes for a more interesting spell cloning mechanic that either simply instant-speed copying or flashback/jump-start mechanisms. And I'm not even sure it's right for this set (though since neither spell exiles, that means that you can use them to play reave kickers ... including potentially reave kickers on the graveyard spell you're cloning.)

The Races of Overgrowth: Human

Overgrowth isn't a tribal set, but as I'm designing, there's a definite connection between certain races and the mechanics of the set. So it's worth exploring the stories I'm trying to tell with these races and just see how everything relates together and whether it all feels coherent.

Guthreham is a human-focused plane, though as both the creatures and the diseases grow out of control, it is a question as to whether that's going to be the case in a hundred years or so.

Humans will appear primarily in white and blue, with some wizards in red to represent the hermits who have retreated to the Nightscrape Mountains. There may be some humans in black to represent the effects of the plagues on the living, but they might end up all being zombies instead. We'll just see how that goes.

There are two main centers of power for the humans remaining in Guthreham. There's The Arbor, the central pastoral W/G city where planeswalker priestess Janell oversees all. The human military force there is devoted to keeping the rampaging wilds from intruding into the human settlements within the scope of The Arbor. The Arbor is made up of eight groves called Acres, named after various species of trees that Janell planted decades ago to memorialize the rout of the forces of darkness. So there will be references to Elm Acres and Juniper Acres et cetera on some cards to indicate connections to The Arbor.

Janell's commandment for humanity to abandon urban places and let the wilds retake the cities caused some problems as The Arbor isn't large enough to house everybody. As the wild areas of Guthreham grew in size and in danger and as plagues started to infect more and more humans, people started getting crowded out of the mainland and pushed toward the coasts. Some enterprising people started building essentially houseboats to live off the coast, keeping them safe (well, slightly safer) from the various predators. People naturally began to gravitate together for safety to what eventually would become known as the Runetide Flotilla, a U/W community of ships off the western coast of the primary continent.

The flotilla has also become a home for many mages who have decided not to abandon Janell to the mountains the way the pyromages have. They're heavily involved with attempting to research the origins of the plane's uncontrollable growth and the dangers it presents. It's becoming increasingly clear that Janell is not willing to recognize that this growth is a threat, and they're not entirely sure what they're going to do about it.

Several mages have also been keeping tabs on the plague-crippled cephalids and are deeply concerned about their potential extinction and what that might mean for the future of the humans of the plane.

Because of the flavor of W/U being a coastal, ship-based community, I decided that gulls would be the birds for the set:

The flavor of humans in Guthreham is intended to be defensive, desperate, and potentially at risk. White and blue is intended to feel very control defensive, with evasive flyers plinking away for a hard-fought win. Even in red, the wizards will be powered by the use of the reave kicker, meaning that in order to deploy them to their best potential, you will need to be willing to make some sacrifices and get some cards into your graveyard: