Wednesday, August 22, 2018

CCDD 082218 - Fastball Special

My current design obsession is translating X-Men mythos into magic cards. Part of what makes the X-Men tick is when they are able to combine their powers in cool and interesting ways.




Off the bat, this feels like a very old school magic card, in that it's expecting the flavor to carry far more weight than the rules are really willing to support.

I'm pretty sure the game itself can recognize the difference between keyword abilities, keyword actions, and ability words, but I'm fairly confident that the vast majority of non-designer players couldn't tell you the difference between them.

The other major hurdle I encountered was which colors to put this in. I feel like it's legitimate in all colors except black. The copying abilities is either blue or red, the +X/+0 is red white or green in this context, the teamwork element feels mostly white. I think this is probably best as a red card, and maybe some multicolor splash anywhere in the Naya range.

But then again, once we're putting a fastball special in Red, isn't that just Fling?

2 comments:

  1. As written, you can tap a blocker or vigilant attacker to boost itself, but that's a trivial fix.

    I think the big thing to do here is remove the ability stuff. Thematically, it's the strength and abilities of the thrown mutant plus the throwing power of the throwing mutant. The abilities of the thrower are irrelevant.

    Should throwing a mutant allow you to aim it at an opposing creature?

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    Replies
    1. The Sorcery speed should prevent most midcombat weirdness, Quicken aside.

      Ugh. This is so simple after you said that.

      As an additional cost to cast ~, tap target untapped creature you control.

      Another target creature you control gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the tapped creature's power. You may have that creature fight another target creature.

      Actually, never mind. That's not simple at all. Three targets, one optional ability, one as part of the cost. Gotta get someone from editing in here to work the dents out of this one.

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