CCDD 20210902 - Harmonic Hydra

 Another custom card for Experiment Kraj deck. My development of it led it too far away from the deck's theme to actually use it in the deck, but originally it had a Chameleon Colossus ability as well. As it stands, it could be interesting in a madness deck (and wouldn't be a stretch in BG)

CCDD 20210701 - Killer's Provisioner

Another variation on the perfect timing mechanical space I want to keyword for Cornea. 

CCDD 08202020 - Krenko's Big Move

I had a long twitter conversation about the best Goblins last night, and that got me thinking about having a central Goblin villain in a story. Krenko is the closest existing contender, but we never get to see him do something truly despicable on screen. I came up with a story beat that might escalate him to villain status, and I came up with a story spotlight card for the set where it happens. 

CCDD 061720 - Funny or Die

Making, and choosing, piles is fun. After the original Fact or Fiction there have been several imitations like Death or Glory and Do or Die. Let's make another.

CCDD 050220 - Obstinate Elf

I honestly don't remember why I thought this design was so interesting. The first ability was the result of brainstorming how Obstinate Baloth-like effects, which green uses to punish discard, could be adapted to play well against Distress-like targeted discard spells.

CCDD 110118—Call into Question

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a new way to make hybrid cards, good for a cycle or two: Modular cards with one effect of each color, where the opponent gets to choose the mode if you only pay one color, but you get to choose if you pay both.

CCDD 091318—Exploit Weakness

Cool Card Design of the Day
Discard lives in an awkward spot where it can't be too focused or too efficient. When we can pair it with another small effect it a way that feels mechanically or thematically organic, that helps us justify that little bit of extra cost.

CCDD 051218—Hymn to Rot

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/12/2018 - There are two problems that prevent Hymn to Tourach from being reprinted in new sets: The most egregious is that it can get lands and mana-screw players, which isn't fun; The other issue is that reliably nabbing two cards inherently costs 3+ mana.

CCDD 041918 - New Line of Questioning and Better Options

I was designing Blue commons yesterday for Adam Klesh and Bradley Rose's Castmire, and came up with a couple of spells with semi-hidden modes.

CCDD 091417—Invade Mind

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/14/2017 - Continuing from yesterday's theme of black playing cards that don't belong to it, that seems like a perfect thing to pair with discard.

CCDD 082317—Twinned

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/27/2017 - I was working on a keyword called 'emulate' which would let you play cards from your hand as copies of the spell with emulate. Some iterations were exactly that, others cost more or had a reduced effect. One had a variable effect based on the card's real CMC, so that you could pay more and get more out of your copies (or pay less and get less)

Ultimately all of those executions suffered the same problem. Emulate is too recursive and noninteractive. Games are less interesting when we cast the same spell over and over, and less fun when there's nothing we can do to end such shenanigans.

How can we salvage the core idea—to let you discard useless cards to cast more of the spells you need right now—without promoting boring and frustrating games?

CCDD 040417—Repurpose

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/4/2017 - What if you had a spell with a static effect, that you could upgrade to a variable effect at the cost of a card instead of mana? Repurpose is loosely inspired by the Shoal cycle.

CCDD 051616—A Mind Wrought

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/16/2016 - That discard is solely black and countermagic solely blue causes those mechanics to more homogenous than most. That's what intrigued me about Jack's 'burn' mechanic: It's a red (arguably) discard mechanic.

How else might red emulate discard?

CCDD 033116—Thraben Bandit

Cool Card Design of the Day
2/20/2016 - This illustration begged for a Shadows over Innistrad design.

CCDD 033016—Desert Hope

Cool Card Design of the Day
3/30/2016 - A discard card for a thirsty plane.

CCDD 021816—Scent of Brains

Cool Card Design of the Day
2/18/2016 - Almost strictly better than "Each other player discards a card." It doesn't reanimate anything, though, so I think it's safe. Agree?

CCDD 102115—Pleasant Lies

Cool Card Design of the Day
10/21/2015 - Mind Rot that's not so terrible late.

CCDD 070115—Think Dark Thoughts

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/1/2015 - If black were to borrow filtering...

CCDD 060915—Unravel

Cool Card Design of the Day
6/9/2015 - A lot of Magic design consists of building something novel from existing parts. Once you have Metalcraft, it's an easy leap from Shock to Galvanic Blast.

More often than not, these designs come from trying to tie existing mechanics into a new theme. But every once in a while, you find a clean overlap between core mechanics that could appear in any set.

CCDD 080714—Pentapod

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/7/2014 - Pentapod's ability is like a flagbearer for discard (see: Coalition Honor Guard). Like Dodecapod, it is meant to combat discard, but rather than punish your opponent for making you discard the spell you added because of her discard, it is meant to actually protect the card's you're so desperate not to discard.