Backfire

The effect and cost of this card are fine, actually, and could easily be reprinted -- but the color and rarity are wrong. (That and it's name is really, really close to Backdraft. It's even the same artist, for chrissakes. Not kosher.) Those concerns actually open up a whole can of worms because, in the right colors, this card is too weak! The obvious place for this card is in white or black. Each could do this card's effect flavorfully and each has a history of creature-retarding auras. (The effect could be argued for red, too, but that color has a limited history of creature-stopping auras -- and the idea of using red to blunt aggression, rather than foster it, feels weird. There's also the fact that this card would be directly competing with Fireball, Lightning Bolt, et al.)

The problem is thus: Compare a white Backfire to Pacifism. Except for Prodigal Sorcerers, it's just worse -- you're letting your opponent choose what's most optimal, to attack or to block. The only time it's equal to Pacifism is when a) the enchanted creature has more power than your opponent has life, b) you have more life than that creature's power, and c) the duder couldn't block your dudes to begin with! That's a pretty big gap for just 1 mana.

Now compare it to Weakness. While that aura doesn't stop attackers or blockers, it reduces their ability by a known quantity; Backfire tacks on a second cost to the creature's attacking, but doesn't change the fact that the creature can still attack. In other words, whereas Weakness guarantees changes to the board state, Backfire forces the creature's controller to spend life to attack. Life is the cheapest of all resources, and the most easily tossed aside; unlike almost every other resource in Magic, only one point of life -- the last one -- means anything.

Which brings us to the underlying problem with this card -- it's just not punishing enough. It's supposed to blunt offense, but the decks that need to be slowed down literally won't give a damn about taking some more damage on the backside. Something like Zoo, for example, will shrug and just end the game at 7, rather than 13, life. We'll scrap color concerns for a moment, and concentrate on what it needs to do: a) It needs to punish combat. b) It wants to do it by attacking life totals. c) It needs to be around Pacifism power level.

With that in mind, here's two cards:

(My apologies -- I took a templating shortcut that I'm not sure actually works.) This card's much more in flavor and slightly better. It's still inflexible -- your opponent decides whether he or she suffers the drawback -- but it's more sweeping now, and in a more-aggressive color, making the life loss more relevant. From a flavor perspective, it's important that the aura, not the creature, is doing the damage. In popular stories and mythology, there are curses that drive men into murderous rages or dark acts -- it's the plot of more than one '60s horror movie -- but the name Backfire implies some sort of feedback loop, rather than compelled aggression. I imagine it's forcing the summoner to experience the agonies the creature is inflicting and suffering.

Still, we all like compelled aggression, right? RIGHT?

I know I said the flavor of this card didn't strike me as being red, but it also wasn't forcing the creature to attack. I think that, with that drawback, this is a particularly red card. You're driving an opponent's duder into a murderous rage, allowing you to pick off utility dorks and also forcing through damage in the process. In this case, it's the duder raging against the planeswalker that summoned it causing the damage -- in other words, it's thrashing about, hurting anything that gets close to it. That's the reason why the aura isn't causing damage in this case; the aura is compelling the creature to lash out and hurt its controller.