Interesting Aspects.
-I could indeed hold players in cinematic mode, until game modes are chosen and then tell everyone the truth about the current settings. The only problem about this concerns those players who are viewing the tutorial > I would have to inform everyone, who is escaping the tut. or looking it through. Maybe it would be better to implement this information with a multiboard?
In the new version, there is already a gamemode-menu at the beginning of the game, displaying to all players, what player 1 is doing. Did you play already a version with this feature?
-The decision to remove all Stationary Cards will definitely take place, as they were anyway too important for a deck (and shouldn't all cards be balanced?
). I will edit all former Stationary cards, so that they are true to the game.
-AI: Indeed takes a holy shit amount of time and I don't have any experiences on this. But mainly, this should help to balance some games with unequal teams (after a leaver), not encourage people to play against the computer. The leaver problem remains to be the biggest problem and is founded in the big learning curve, which you mentioned.
But maybe, its easier to make the smaller team as strong as the bigger team (reduce the lifepoints of the bigger team, increase the manareg of the smaller team and let them draw more cards).
-Colored Mode: Will probably fuck up pub games, as you said. Wanted to implement it for old Magic enthusiasts, because I already got some appeals, because colors don't play a role at all. The best solution is imo to implement this mode, but to advise against it in public games (I can just name the mode "Color Mode (not recommended)").
-Niv-Mizzet will be implemented exactly as you said it.
Quietus Spike: The implementation is no problem at all, we just have to do without the cardholder effect, which is too strong. But the deathtouch-ability seems to be interesting
Vindicate can already destroy everything on the board, because there exist neither lands nor enchantments in the map (the thing with lands will change until the next 'big' version). Atm, all cards, being an enchantment in the original cardgame, are stated as 'artifacts' in the map, so they can be destroyed with artifact-destroyers.
Maelstrom does maybe not need a higher mana cost, because it can also destroy friendly units in a side-effect (I admit that this rarely happens). Have to think about it
Regards, Eikonium