In January, we're heading back to the dual plane of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor--at MagicCon Atlanta, Wizards released a first look at the set and set expectations for our first full return to the Anglo-Celtic-influenced plane in almost two decades. We know we'll see Elementals with Evoke, Kithkin and Flamekin, and all the other creative successes from the plane, but apparently missing are the less-than-successful mechanics of the four-set megablock--a category that certainly includes Kinship. Kinship has only ever appeared in 2008's Morningtide, which was focused entirely on typal strategies between the creature types in Lorwyn and the class types of Morningtide. Changelings bridged the gap and made Lorwyn/Morningtide draft an extremely challenging and rewarding format, but it wasn't because of the memorable mechanics that the block is remembered as a success--Champion, Clash, and Kinship all have languished since the Great Recession hit.

Kinship is an ability word, similar to Adamant or Coven, which (as printed to this point) triggers during your upkeep and allows you to look at the top card of your library. If it shares a creature type with the card with Kinship, you may then reveal it to grant a bonus to the card with Kinship. As of 2024, Mark Rosewater has noted that Kinship was "poorly received," so I don't expect it to return as printed. I certainly think there's a place for an evolution of Kinship, in much the same way that Surveil evolved from Scry, but it will require significant design updates. The issues with Kinship are numerous and immediately apparent:

1. As an upkeep trigger, Kinship requires tracking the game closely--it uses both "may look" and "may reveal," meaning more decision chains and slower games.
2. The Kinship payoffs are limited in usefulness--most were designed for Limited, where (in Lorwyn-Morningtide draft) you could draft a deck to exploit them, but that means the Kinship payoff was a Limited-relevant mechanic on a Limited-relevant body, as in Squeaking Pie Grubfellows or Waterspout Weavers.
3. More than anything, in all but the most unreasonably focused decks, it simply doesn't trigger that often. Kithkin Zephyrnaut reads like a cheap Serra Angel, but even if you snapped up all the Kithkin, Soldiers, and Changelings that went around the table, it would only be a Serra Angel half the time and Tarfire-bait the rest of the time.

Even in a strictly typal deck, you're probably running 23 lands, 24-30 creatures of your chosen type, and a handful of removal or interactive spells to fill out the 60, so you have a ceiling of 50% for Kinship to trigger. That's not quite good enough for the smaller Kinship effects--Leaf-Crowned Elder, the best card with Kinship from a short list of a dozen, at least effectively lets you draw and cast a spell for free, but even that is limited to Treefolk and Shaman spells. Leaf-Crowned Elder is a fine card in Doran, the Siege Tower or Fangorn, Tree Shepherd and is pretty fun with Noxious Revival or Flamekin Harbinger, but that's a lot of hoops to jump through just to Cascade. The other Kinship cards don't even offer you something that attractive: Mudbutton Clanger, for example, even in a purely Goblin deck, is going to be a bad Goblin Guide half of the time and a 1/1 the other half.

An Elf deck in Lorwyn Standard could theoretically run 24 lands and 36 Elf spells (including Nameless Inversion and Eyeblight's Ending as the removal suite), but the payoff of Wolf-Skull Shaman is a free 2/2 60% of the time, which is like handing out coupons on Halloween. Again: this is one of the more potent Kinship cards. Most Kinship cards were closer to Wandering Graybeard, a 4/4 for five with no abilities that could gain four life every other turn if you were willing to slow down your deck with a bunch of Giants and/or Wizards. Pyroclasm was always a great card, but Pyroclasm cost 1R for a guaranteed two damage to each creature; Pyroclast Consul required you to cast and protect a 3/3 for 3RR in the hopes, not the guarantee, of getting a free Pyroclasm if you were lucky enough to reveal an Elemental or a Shaman on turn six.

Sensation Gorger is a classic example of the failures of Kinship: as a 2/2 for three, it's already understatted, and the ability is both unpredictable and symmetrical. In order for Gorger to be a desirable card, you need to be running a Goblin deck that isn't hyperaggressive, wants to hit Wheel of Fortune every couple turns, and doesn't mind giving your opponent(s) fresh cards. That deck never materialized, and even group slug decks like Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin that want the repeatable Windfall effect don't run enough Goblins to trigger Sensation Gorger.

Tribal, introduced in Lorwyn and now revised to Kindred, helped you hit on Kinship more than if you were limited to exclusively creatures, but the central issue with Kinship is that players like it when their cards are predictable. Either cards with random mechanics are too low-impact, like Clash and Kindred, or they're overpowered when exploited, as with Miracle and Cascade. There is enough randomness in Magic just from the vagaries of the mana system and the randomization of shuffling, and we, as players, tend not to want mechanics that decrease our deck's consistency, particularly when the benefit from the mechanic is as small-ball as Kinship's tended to be. Warping your deck around flipping up a certain card is more feasible when the card is Terminus or Temporal Mastery--when you're milling for three with Ink Dissolver or forcing a discard with Squeaking Pie Grubfellows, it's not worth the effort.

Weirdly enough, the best spot for Kinship to return would be in Arena's Alchemy cards--as they often have effects that rewrite cards outside of the battlefield or shuffle specific cards into your library, a card with Kinship that perpetually turns all creatures or noncreature permanents in your library into Kithkin or Wizards could solve the issues with Kinship. That's if Wizards is interested in solving the issues with Kinship; they may be perfectly happy consigning it to the pile of Magic's failed mechanics. Still, as someone who drafted a ton of Lorwyn-Morningtide drafts back in college, I enjoyed the random element of Clashing and flipping up cards with Kinship, and it will always feel like a crucial element of the block. Leaf-Crowned Elder and Sensation Gorger may be the only two cards worth considering from the dozen Kinship cards, but 1 out of 6 isn't the worst-performing mechanics of Magic.