Cool Card Design of the Day5/30/2011 - If you haven't seen Chah's Mashup articles (1 & 2) this weekend, check 'em out now; it's a very cool design exercise. So cool, I knew I'd want to play along. Every time Chah announced the next pair, I stopped reading and designed my own mashup so that I could see how similar our solutions were. As it turns out, not remotely.
First up was Sulfur Vent and Butcher Orgg:
I liked the idea that Sulfer Vent provided of sacrificing a card that does one thing to do something similar but different and about twice as good. Make 'that thing' dealing combat damage and you've got this one-sided wrath / one-time rhox.
I also wanted to see if I could go the other way and make a violent land. The Butcher's Field isn't terrible innovative and it seems pretty busted with the Arc-Sloggers of the world, but I'm happy with it.
Next up was Moonglove Changeling and Island.
I like where Chah went with this better. Temple of Velis Vel is pretty cool.
Finally there was Charmed Pendant and Necrosavant.
I liked the idea of marrying the abilities of these two cards to create an in-your-face one card combo engine. Possibly too easy to work with, I dunno, combos aren't really my thing. My only other concern about Charmed Necrosavant is whether the "from anywhere" should just be "from the battlefield." That would certainly be cleaner and safer.
Anyhow, you can see my mashes were totally different from Chah's. I'd be very curious to see if anyone else had different interpretations of the same two-card pairings. More tomorrow.
I designed this little bugger as a reference to the Spirit Guides of yore, as well as support for various set themes that I hope to discuss in my next article:
ReplyDeleteNourishing Mozgul (C)
2G
Creature - Plant Elemental
When CARDNAME is put into a graveyard from anywhere, you may add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
2/2
I think the reason yours looks less clean is that A) It has three separate effects on it and B) the other two effects revolve around sacrifice. So it would seem logical to make yours just trigger upon dying. I would also probably remove the middle ability, as it just reads as "I didn't think this card was good enough without it".
I really like what you did with Butcher Orgg. The cost or power might need to be adjusted, but it's cool and it interprets the two criteria cards well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Butcher's Field could say "Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent, untap this." or "The first time a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent each turn, untap this." and it won't be broken.
I know what I should have done with the Changeling and Island slot now:
Landmorph Changeling 2(G/U)
Shapeshifter
1: CARDNAME becomes a nonbasic Forest, Plains, Island, Swamp, or Mountain land until end of turn. (It's no longer a creature.)
"Not all Changelings turned into Mimics. Some of them simply melted into the landscape, as other beings had done before the Aurora."
Charmed Necrosavant does look cluttered with three abilities. I think a combo part either needs to convert resources, create a weird static rule, or do a strong and weird effect with lots of hoops, but it doesn't need to combo with itself.
Is Landmorph Changeling the first creature that turns into a land (Ignoring Zoetic Cavern)? Brilliant. Well-played, Sir.
ReplyDeleteThe Butcher's Field as written would be a monster alongside Battlefield Forge/Shivan Reef/Sulfurous Springs/Karplusan Forest.
ReplyDeleteholy crap the butcher's field would be absolutely ridiculous in burn decks or on burn spells with buyback.
ReplyDelete