Monday, June 6, 2011

21 Ways to Design a Card: Part 6 — Proverbs

Proverbs are a source of inspiration for Magic cards. I looked at a list of proverbs and designed some cards from them.

At first I intended to make this a minor episode, but I ended up with quite a few cards.

No pain, no gain.
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Might makes right.
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Ignorance is bliss.
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Out of sight, out of mind.
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Procrastination is the thief of time.
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Diseases of the soul are more dangerous than those of the body.
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Prevention is better than cure.
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A rotten apple spoils the barrel.
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No man's an island.
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Better late than never.
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Rome wasn't built in a day.
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If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
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Lightning never strikes twice.
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Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.
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Doing this exercise, I found that many proverbs remind me of existing cards. "Birds of a feather flock together" reminds me of Welkin Hawk. "No pain, no gain" reminds me of Test of Faith. "Every man has his price" reminds me of Legacy's Allure. Maybe some of them got inspiration from proverbs?

5 comments:

  1. A lot of great designs here, Chah!

    I think my favorite by far is Ignorance is Bliss, as that style of minigame card really tickles my fancy, especially in a multiplayer scenario.

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  2. I'm not sure I haven't seen No Pain No Gain before, but I'm not sure I have either. It's pretty cool regardless.

    Not sure why the Might creature has an enchantment name, but I like the idea. Not sure why you went with Pro: All Colors versus Pro: Everything, Pro: Spells or just Hex-Shroud.

    I feel like Ignorance is Bliss is one of those designs you imagine will play out differently a lot and ends up just being "Play opponent's best spell" 90% of the time.

    Out of Sight Out of Mind has a clever combo I've not seen before. We've seen bounce and discard, but bounce and Wheel is pretty interesting.

    The nice thing about Thief of Time versus Thieving Magpie is that taking an extra turn always feels like and usually is equivalent to making your opponent lose a turn, so it really feels like theft. The 4 counters feels weird, even though you're right you need to build into the Time Warp. Maybe she's a 1/4 for 3U?

    Master of Procrastination reads terribly but could be pretty devastating with some early luck.

    Maybe Temple of Inversion should be global so you can build your deck around it /and/ hope to screw your opponent.

    I'd like Core of Decay better if it went away when all your creatures were dead, but I see why you didn't just make it an enchant creature. Cromulent.

    Serpent of No Man's Isle is freaky. Like.

    Guardian of Late Bloom is awesome.

    Halls of Feasting is a lot more complicated than it looks. In a good way, I think. Problem is, that and an Icy Manipulator would be murder.

    So not only does Lightning Never Strikes Twice remove every creature that deals damage to you for the rest of the game, it also makes you immune to the other 3 copies of it. AND it has flash?

    Better Face the Devil You Know is quite strong and not terribly elegant. I like where you were going with the first version but it was just too fiddly. Not sure where to go with it though.

    Overall, great stuff.

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  3. I love Thief of Time and I am shamelessly stealing it for future use.

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  4. Thief of Time is definitely the best of the lot.

    I don't think people will actually play Ignorance is Bliss the way you want. 90% of the time, it'll just read, "Target player reveals their hand and discards all nonland cards," which is a fine super-Persecute, but not what I think you were going for.

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  5. Certainly in traditional tournament scenarios there's no reason to believe Ignorance is Bliss would perform quite as intended, but assuming a format such as EDH I can envision people engaging in political behaviors wherein they leave certain cards that may only punish other players.

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