CCDD 052511—Demonic Teacher and Monster Call

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/25/2011 - Demonic Tutor is too cheap. Diabolic Tutor is too expensive. Grim Tutor's about right, but feels very downside. Praetor's Grasp depends on your opponent to have something that you want to cast. What if the tutor couldn't be used early but paid for itself?


If we don't mind obsoleting Diabolic Tutor, I'd be fine with this costing 2BB. Testing may well show that getting the full cost back is too good. Perhaps you get back 2B so that the total price paid is 1B. There are two things I really like about Demonic Teacher. The first is that it encourages you to play expensive spells. Granted, this hasn't been an issue since the Titans were printed, but those won't last forever and it's good to promote big plays regardless. The other is that... ah crap. I keep thinking that reducing a cost by B will have no effect on a spell with no B in the cost but that's not how it works — the B can reduce the colorless mana cost. Maybe the cost reduction should be colorless only to avoid this confusion.

As will often happen, Demonic Teacher immediately inspired another card. What other color wants to tutor large spells to cast? What other color helps generate mana for your spells? Why, Green does those things!


Monster Call is fairly comparable to Dramatic Entrance, Summoning Trap and the like. You can cast it at the end of your opponent's turn, get any creature from your deck and cast it on your own turn, even keeping counter mana up if it's not a turn 6 Eldrazi. Hmm, that might be too good. *Shrug*