Tuesday, April 29, 2014

CCDD 042914—Crimson Panther

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/29/2014 - I came to this design while thinking about defensive green spells. At some point, I thought it would be more interesting to make a creature that could be defended by a variety of spells than a spell that could defend a variety of creatures. I'm not sure that's true and this design has flaws, but it's worth discussing:


The obvious drawback here is that this text does nothing unless your opponent chooses to target it despite the warning signs. At least as important—I would argue—is that it contains a cool idea but crowds it with distractions. Check this out:


Less text, works proactively (and therefore with more kinds of spells), and now the defensive option is actually hidden complexity that players can feel clever about finding. Instead of just having a clunky version of hexproof, this is now something players can actively fantasize about casting auras and multi-target spells on. I'd still want to iterate on the numbers and think more about how players expect a {1}{G} cost reduction works, but at least this is a defensible core idea. If you really wanted to purify the new idea, you could ditch the cost reduction entirely and just go with the flash bonus; That's less exciting on paper, but will impress players once the games start.

14 comments:

  1. Why not just have a generic cost reduction of 1 (or 2 if you want to push this)? I don't see what the G adds.

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  2. Even if players are better at interpreting the cost reduction than I think, I'd still only reduce colorless to preserve a few shields down moments. Anyway, I really like the flash granting here.

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  3. It just isn't exciting if I can't cast some things for free. I love it, but I worry the "flash" part isn't carrying its weight. Do you really want people Trollhiding this at instant speed?

    I do want this to be in a set with Savage Surge so they always just have to worry a bit about what might be waiting around the corner.

    I really like the colored cost reduction as well, precisely because it lets you cast some (narrow) band of spells for free.

    I don't think this is a common, and if you made it a little bit splashier, it could be a pretty awesome rare (then it could probably keep the flash).

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    1. Wizards seems to favor just colorless reduction, as seen on Spellwild Ouphe, who is pretty different from this CCDD but I think he's relevant.

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    1. Duh-dun duh-dun, duh-dun, duh-dun duh-dun duh-dun...

      *stops himself*

      Yeah, cool card!

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  5. I'm surprised we didn't see a rootwater shaman style card in Theros.

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  6. I worry that this card doesn't have a clear sense of purpose in a vacuum. How many good green sorceries that target a creature can exist in a single environment?

    Also, you're reducing colorless mana cost and colored mana cost and granting flash. Definitely not NWO common.

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  7. Yeah, definitely not a common with both cost reduction and Flash.

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  8. Unfortunately, the flash effect doesn't work within the current rules. Timing restrictions (and other restrictions) are checked before a spell is able to be put onto the stack. Targeting decisions are made later in the spell casting process, and are therefore unable to be used in determining whether that spell is able to be cast as if it had flash.

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    1. This can probably be solved with templating, i.e. "You may cast spells as though they had flash as long as they target ~."

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    2. That still doesn't work. All checks to see whether a spell is castable happen as it is going onto the stack. By the time you get to targeting, the only thing that can prevent a spell from being cast is not having legal targets or choices, or not being able to pay costs.

      While you could solve this with templating, it would be really awkward. "You may cast spells as though they had flash. Non-Instant spells you cast cost {100} more unless they target ~ or are cast when you could cast a sorcery."

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    3. I'm unconvinced. Casting a spell has its process, but it remains a single game action. If by the time you finish casting a spell, everything about that casting is legal, it should be fine.

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