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 20210629 - Exotic Pet

 

CCDD 20210622 - Guardian Hydra

 

CCDD 092218—Hale Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
Hale Hydra is meant to be compelling to Tammy and new players without being over-complicated.

CCDD 082118—Hell's Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a green-black interpretation of a hydra.
Heads-up: This execution is real mythic.

CCDD 050918 - Other Iconic Forms

I loved Jay's exploration of Forms of the Phoenix earlier this week, and decided to take a shot at forms for other iconic creatures.

CCDD 042816—Hydra Grub

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/28/2016 - Hydra Grub will occasionally be stranded in your hand in Limited. Other times, it will win you the game. In Constructed, it should be a big deal quite often. Take a look.

CCDD 041316—Protein Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/13/2016 - This art begged to have Protean Hydra's head-regeneration effect but I couldn't differentiate the card enough, so I found another execution.

CCDD 071511—Devouring Hydra, others

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/15/2011 - I have three Hydra designs left and I'm going to share them all with you today rather than revisit them on some later date. Don't worry about being overwhelmed in awesome, they're fairly tame compared to the last few days. Naturally, I will be saving my favorite for last. First up:

CCDD 071411—Polyneuma Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/14/2011 - While I was confident when I started Hydra week that there were aspects of the Hydra that hadn't been represented in card form yet, I must say I've been pleasantly surprised how many very cool such aspects there are left to mine. Today we cover the Hydra whose heads each breathe a different deadly substance. You know, fire, acid, lightning, frost, poison, etc. Oh, and you get to watch me stumble a lot before I find something really decent.

CCDD 071311—The Many-Eyed Serpent

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/13/2011 - Before you continue with today's CCDD, if you haven't seen the addition of Omniscient Hydra to yesterday's post, thanks to Nich Grayson, check it out real quick. It's pretty sweet.

The Many-Eyed Serpent is actually the least favorite of my Hydra designs this week (not that I hate it), but I share it with you today because it has a relevant new Hydra ability and because it's interesting to discuss the possible executions. First let's take a look at the original version:

CCDD 071211—Celestial Hydra & Omniscient Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/12/2011 - Most Hydra* don't get any smarter when you add another head. As it should be. But sometimes you've got to make an exception to prove the rule. How do we represent this in Magic? In this game, smarter equals more cards.

CCDD 071111—Royal Hydra

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/11/2011 - In honor of 7-Eleven's birthday, I welcome you to Hydra Week (but you're going to have connect the dots yourself). Since Hydra are the recently elected iconic creature type for green, joining the Angels, Sphinxes (Sphinges?), Demons and Dragons of the world, we're going to be seeing a lot more of them in the future. Here are all the Hydras printed so far. Most have an X in their mana cost (Feral Hydra) and/or size-affecting counters on them (Phyrexian Hydra) and those that don't are either just straight up huge (Hydra Omnivore) or have a splitting effect (Sprouting Phytohydra). They are also almost all rare.

Today I bring you a very strong uncommon. In fact, the true reason for Hydra week is that I want to try a new design strategy I have a lot of trouble with: Designing Powerful Cards (of which, Ken Nagle is the patron saint). As as an amateur Magic designer, I'm so used to having to do my own development, that I tend to be very conservative with my numbers and effects. In R&D, that's not actually a useful trait because Development will be testing and tweaking all the numbers anyhow, so a designer might as well be optimistic and let his/her card tickle some Spike sensibilities.

CCDD 021511—Fertile Hydrangea

Classic Cool Card Design of the Day
What follows is a CCDD that was created before the feature transitioned from the Wizards Wiki to Goblin Artisans. It has been formatted to fit your screen.

2/15/2011 - Fertile Hydrangea was inspired by thinking about cards that would be particularly good with Shambing Symbiont and Juniper Order Ranger . It's a Phantom / Hydra, but it holds quite a lot in common with Sekki, Seasons' Guide. I believe he's simpler overall, despite adding an X to the cost because he plays into the multi-headed hydra trope. In this case, cutting off a head spawns a baby plant rather than more heads.