CCDD 050619 - Reclaiming Namespace (Blaze of Glory)

A pet project of many amateur (and professional) designers is to ruminate on what Alpha would look like if it were being designed today for the first time. It's definitely a fun exercise, but honestly, if you look at the cards in Alpha, so many of them are just so near perfect. They legitimately set the game up to last over 25 years, and the quality shows.

Reinventing Alpha, Part 4: Are You the Keymaster?

After traveling to the past and inadvertently running over Richard Garfield with a DeLorean, our protagonist is on a quest to rebuild Alpha.  Last time, he killed Banding and Flash, fixed Protection, and changed Shroud.  What could be next?  Past columns: 1 2 3.

Now that we've edited our evergreen keyword abilities to a more presentable form, there's a more pressing issue which Jay pointed out: how many of these are actually going into Alpha?  And which of them will receive keywords?  

Reinventing Alpha, Part 3: Putting the Band back Together

After traveling to the past and inadvertently running over Richard Garfield with a DeLorean, our protagonist is on a quest to rebuild Alpha.  Last time, he got rid of maximum hand size and the upkeep step.  What could be next?  Past columns: 1 2.

Today, we're going to talk about creature abilities.  The current list of evergreen creature abilities is:

Reinventing Alpha, Part 2: Y'all Know the Rules

After traveling to the past and inadvertently running over Richard Garfield with a DeLorean, our protagonist is on a quest to rebuild Alpha.  Last time, he replaced the Instant type with the Quick supertype.  What will he "fix" today?

The rules of Magic: the Gathering are a remarkable accomplishment.  On the one hand, they were so well crafted upon inception that they have undergone little cosmetic change since 1993.  If you sat down a person who hadn't played since Alpha and showed them a game today, they would notice very few changes in the rules.

Reinventing Alpha, Part 1: I'm an Excellent Driver

Time travel is a dangerous business. There I was, cruising through the streets of Walla Walla circa 1993 in my DeLorean, when some guy walked into the road right in front of me. Okay, not just some guy. A math professor from Whitman College. Richard Garfield. I tried to swerve, but he just came out of nowhere, you know?

Okay. So I traveled to the past and ran over Richard Garfield before Alpha was released. My bad. But I resolved, then and there, to set things right!

No, not by traveling to the future to stop myself from traveling to the past. That sort of negative causality loop never ends well. Instead, I decided to take over Magic: the Gathering and release Alpha myself. Armed with a spoiler, I set about reconstructing Garfield's vision.