Friday, June 21, 2013

CCDD 062113—Noble Phoenix

Cool Card Design of the Day
6/21/2013 - I don't normally post a CCDD on the same day as the Weekend Art Challenge, but since Wednesday's Chromatic Phoenix was nearly a reprint, I'm sharing the Phoenix that led to it today as a bonus.

At least one of you will find this ability strikingly familiar…


Fixed version:


13 comments:

  1. I like it! :)

    Unfortunately, it probably needs an anti-sacrifice clause to avoid being broken.

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  2. Noble Phoenix + Blasting Station = turn 4 win (turn 3 if you got a mana elf out on turn 1.)

    Or, alternatively, a turn 1 Viscera Seer lets you reorganize your deck however you want once this hits the board.

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  3. Returning it to the battlefield at end of turn would fit with the phoenix flavor, needing time to be reborn, and makes it less broken with sac effects.

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  4. I agree with all of you, but especially James who took the initiative to find a fix.

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  5. this is still pretty broken with sac effects. this probably cost to little. most phoenix's with easily return triggers cost 5 and/ or have double commitment. I would suggest cutting the ability to return it from being sacrificed entirely by "when noble phoenix dies from an effect you don't control, and it wasn't dealt lethal damage, return it to the battlefield." once you get this far you realize why wizards hasn't printed something like this.

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  6. Why not inverse it?
    I would prefer it to trigger if it dies from lethal damage. Otherwise sacrifices consume its essence, wraths of gods are coming from GODS, and should generally sap its ability to return. Also, it is less broken.

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  7. I love phoenix's, so the more designs the merrier. This works pretty neatly and flavourful.

    The way this works, if I ping it, let it resolve, then tragic slip it that still constitutes death by lethal damage, right? Does this still hold if I sac off a different creature while the spell is on stack.

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    Replies
    1. The first example would clearly count as death by lethal damage.

      The second example exposes a danger with this rules text. What happens here? There are two game rules simultaneously trying to destroy your creature. One, because it's suffered damage equal to or greater than its toughness, and the other, because it has toughness 0 or less. I wonder if one happens before the other, or if the game rules even differentiate.

      Regardless, the fact that almost no one will know the answer is kind of a deal-breaker.

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    2. I think that this is a very rare situation if the card is put in a proper set. It will also be included in the rules clarifications. I have to re-read that section of rules to be sure of what happens.

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  8. By the way Jay, if you are still reading this, could you make a blogpost/ answer about your process of finding the pictures for the cards used, and the challenges you impose?

    Things like useful sites (deviantart and google images are my current sources for example). I started a blog with a similar scope, and am having problems finding adequate images to fit the designs in my head.

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    Replies
    1. Not sure it warrants a blog post. I always go to DeviantArt first and try at least a dozen different word combinations* that might lead to what I want (if the first doesn't work). If that completely fails, I'll do the same on Google Images.

      More often than not, I'm matching art to a card I've already designed, but I see enough cool images while searching for those that I snag them for later top-down designs or art challenges.

      *Sometimes, that requires some creative thinking. "What kind of image names might contain an image with a wizard studying?" "Wizard study" is a good first choice, but you might try different synonyms for 'Wizard' as well as 'library' 'books' 'tome' 'arcane' 'laboratory' on the other end. It's not unusual that a particular word brings up some anime character and those can be tricky to search around.

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