Happy Magic Monday everybody! Sometimes they really are limited fodder commons.

Sometimes that ends up being far more complicated from a game design perspective.

Aesthetic design notes:

Part of designing for a set or block rather than for pure personal indulgence is 'storytelling through card design'. Cards must give a sense of progression and allow you to understand what is going to or has happened in the world of magic. In this case, we see flavor in the form of card effects depicting a dangerous but potentially beneficial transformation to an ooze monster.

I actually have attempted to design a set. Well, more than one of them even, and many of the cards going forward will be from that.

In this case, this would be printed in 'Songs of Sonora', along with a 'Wolf Adviser' creature version of Amy, part one of the Sonora block, detailing the last months of a plane dying of old age and the various attempts of its inhabitants to live through it. The next set, 'Silence of Sonora' would then contain an ooze warrior creature version of Amy, showing her before and after the transformation before ultimately becoming a planeswalker. This is largely because:

1. Amy is a slime girl
   2. There are no ooze planeswalkers, making it a unique niche
   3. There probably SHOULDN'T be any ooze planeswalkers, they're generally nonsentient, so you'd probably have to explain how that happened, which this card does.

No, planeswalker Amy would not actually be printed in the second Sonora set, it's curiously common to have things that only happen as or after the climax go completely unrepresented on cards. There was no 'Tibalt Compleated' printed in Kamigawa, for example.

If there's interest in more full explanations of some of the stuff I'm doing with Sonora (which is admittedly full of furries mainly so I can use the art I actually have, and is not my best designed set) then I can try posting these more often with more complete explanations as to the background.

Game design notes:

Elephant in the room, the wording on this one should probably be something closer to:

Deal three damage to target creature, then put 3 +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.

This would better match common wordings of cards. (Or, if I'm completely forgetting how 'then' works and it wouldn't check to see if the creature dies BEFORE putting the counters on, something entirely different.) Point is, I know this isn't TECHNICALLY correct wording.

But damnit this version is so much more evocative and satisfying than that. It's also honestly EASIER to understand what it does this way on an intuitive, human level. And I don't think it technically messes up anything to phrase it like this. Given that Wizards hasn't actually hired me (yet) and definitely won't from an Furry Trash card regardless (ever) I don't think it ultimately matters.

Also 'Skyshroud Ambush' already exists and it just says 'when you win the fight' so there is some precedent for just letting people intuit things.

Now onto the actual card. This thing is actually in a pretty delicate balance, design wise.

A two mana 3 damage smackdown is a common effect, actually with strangle you can price it at one for sorcery speed now, and putting a +1/+1 counter on one of your dudes is considered a 'sub 1 mana' effect, even at common, so combining the two on a single card makes a certain level of sense.

Putting 3 counters on a creature for 2 would, however, be considered actually pretty strong. But requiring two colors to do it weakens it slightly, as well as being sorcery speed making it a powerful but not completely out of control buff, especially when you factor in the fact that it can ONLY work on a creature who already has at least 4 toughness, which circumvents the ability to actually use it turn 2, which is what would otherwise make the card broken. (There are precious few cards anywhere you can get out that fast that can survive a 3 slap who don't have defender and a complete inability to attack, and there will be none whatsoever in-set.)

Having both on the same card would ordinarily push it out of the level of acceptable power, but there are also a few factors limiting that. Namely the fact that it -is- bicolor, which is actually quite unusual for commons (though not so rare as to be undoable) and therefore playable only in exactly red/green, which does not usually specialize in very high toughness creatures. The fact that it's sorcery speed. And, well... the fact that it can backfire.

If you attempt to use its removal aspect, by far still the more relevant part in limited, and your opponent does something to make their monster survive, then WHOOPSIE you just kicked your own ass, and the fact that its 3 counters instead of 2 becomes a disaster. It's also not at all implausible that this would happen in a limited game of Song of Sonora, given that its 'evasion' spells would do things like give indestructible without hexproof or temporarily block damage... partially BECAUSE of spells like Traumatic Transformation.

Given that 'the world is trying to kill you, survive and become awesome' is a recurring aesthetic theme for the set, TT would not be alone in this sort of effect.

Becoming an ooze as a result is 100% a flavor thing, 'targeting species change' is such a pathetically weak effect that while technically it COULD alter the gamestate in some way you don't usually have to worry much about it. And if there IS a way to break it then it'll be a nice little present for Johnny to let him figure it out.