CCDD 010313—Jade Constrictor

Cool Card Design of the Day
1/3/2013 - There's nothing too crazy here. It occurred to me that all of the snakes in Magic, none really hit the constrictor concept. Krosan Constrictor kind of does, but the black-only targeting requirement is so lame. Boa Constrictor is… a stretch. You could argue that Kashi-Tribe Warriors and their clan have a constricting effect—and they could have—but it's clearly poison that's making their wrestling buddies so sluggish.

The original execution was much more complex: First, it put a strangulation counter on a creature it fought with in combat. Then it kept that creature tapped and did progressively more damage to it each turn. There was also a power comparison at one point. As flavorful as that was, it was ridiculously wordy and not remotely worthwhile. Boiling down the concepts to its core a few times brought me here.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to add a sorcery-speed clause, but then you either have to add a "doesn't untap" clause or accept that it can only be used on offense. Ultimately, the nature of the ability wanted something with low power and high toughness so that you would rather use its ability than attack with it, it can't just kill wolves and bears all day long, and has a reasonable chance of surviving many encounters. At 1/3, I don't think being able to constrict anything you like at instant speed will ruin too many games.

What might well be worthwhile or necessary is adding a mana cost to the activation, since this actually compares pretty favorably to Fiend Hunter and Prodigal Pyromancer a lot of the time.