Cool Card Design of the Day4/6/2011 - You might think it would be really easy to find art for random beast-like monsters on the interwebs. I'm sure it's out there, but I can tell you that searching for beast either brings up magic cards or photos of silly animals. Why do I mention it? Well, I just don't want you to panic when you see the art for Rampaging Nork.
I knew I wanted to use conditional double strike as a successor to rampage (and to a lesser extend, "new rampage"), which is why my original design was green-red (at 3GR). After laying it out all out, I realized this card doesn't need green to be since red has access to trample now and I don't see any reason rampage effects couldn't be red.
On a side note: It amuses me when you see a card with toughness one greater than its power and it's obvious that the only reason for it was that x/x was too weak, x+1/x+1 was too strong and reducing the casting cost was not an option. Rampaging Nork is like that, though perhaps not as much as Kor Skyfisher, Bloodshot Trainee, Loxodon Partisan, Tangle Mantis and Phyrexian Vatmother, to name a few.
This ability has the same problem as Rampage did, only worse. It might as well read, "Rampaging Nork can't be blocked by more than one creature," because it's almost never advantageous to do so. Unless you put a Lure on it, this poor guy never gets to live the Double Strike dream.
ReplyDeleteMaybe drop the trample and just have, "Whenever CARDNAME becomes blocked, it gains double strike until end of turn"?
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of combat abilities that fall under the category of simulated-evasion. That is, the ability doesn't physically prevent anything from blocking it that otherwise could have, but it does penalize blocking it. First strike, trample and death touch are common examples, as is the ability granted by Infiltration Lens.
ReplyDeleteRampage, "new rampage" and this ability all fall under that category and—you're right, Ari—Rampage and this ability both only discourage a player from double- or gang-blocking and have no effect during normal one-on-one combat. In that respect, this ability is about as bad as Rampage. It's not quite as tricky to read, but whatever.
Perhaps the card needs an ability (apart from threating four poitns of trampley damage each turn) to make single-blocking it worse. Or maybe it's just not worth doing. I have to admit, as a Johnny, I like thinking about ways to play this and force my opponent to double-block like the Lure you suggested. I'm okay with this not satisfying Timmy and Spike, but does it satisfy Johnny, or is it just a straight whiff?