Weekend Art Challenge Review 040513—Dragon's Maze

Here's the challenge we'll be reviewing today.

(It's kind of fun mimicking Jay!)

CCDD 040913—Farhaven Wanderer

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/9/2013 - I made these in July while anticipating the eventual release of Return to Ravnica. I wanted to create a cycle of monocolored creatures with an activated ability that works with either of the allied colors and an upgraded version of that ability that works with both (IE, in a three-color deck). I didn't particularly expect anything like that in Ravnica, but it was an interesting exercise just the same. Some of these are much better/worse than others, showing how tough it can be to make a tight cycle sometimes.

CCDD 040813—Colorless Frontier

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/8/2013 - What if we use the colorless-matters idea from Ekkremes for Frontier? Most Westerns are set in desert areas where life is hard not just for the people, but for everything. What if that were because there's not as much rich mana around? Explore with me.

Uses of Gold Counters Part 1/2—Goldgrab, Mini-quests, and Bounties

The Gold counter mechanic was created by Devon Rule and his team in the Great Designer Search 2. In Devon's set, various cards would grant players Gold counters, which could be spent to pay for mana or life payments.

I believe Gold counters is a mechanic that has many uses that lead to exciting game play. Here are some ideas for using Gold in our Western-themed set, Frontier.

Weekend Art Challenge 040513—Dragon's Maze

Weekend Art Challenge

Jay is swamped with work this weekend, so I'll be filling in this week.

Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your card submission, due Monday morning. Remember that you may ask for feedback by mid-day Sunday and redesign your submission after you get it.

CCDD 040413—Trees

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/4/2013 - My biggest complaint with the game of Magic is how often mana screw and mana flood can decide games. Yes, it's important that your mana curve isn't guaranteed and that there's something that can give new players a chance against old players, and to give players a scapegoat for their mistakes. But sometimes it just wastes your time. I want to see less of it, and for that reason, I support including some kind of smoothing mechanic in most if not every set.

Cycling is the cleanest mechanic for this and today's card is meant to explore the question,
What if cycling was free sometimes?

CCDD 040313—Lightning Wake

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/3/2013 - My day disappeared again so instead of jabbering on, I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader. This card seems pretty busted. How would you improve it?