CCDD 030713—Great Pharaoh, High Priest & War Pharaoh

Cool Card Design of the Day
3/7/2013 - I've been looking for the universal thread woven into the great Egyptian tapestry and—wow, labored metaphors are really lame. Innistrad's Horror theme revolves around transformation. Ankh-Theb's Egyptian theme revolves around… greed and ambition. At least, that's making a lot of sense so far. If you think you can find something more central, please do share.

So, the big mechanic of Ankh-Theb—the one that makes this plane play differently from other destinations in the Multiverse—should read, look and/or play like the limitless ambition of a king who would make thousands of men sweet, bleed and die in the desert in order to build him the grandest monument of all. Like the unflinching greed of a slavemaster who would shackle, whip and dehumanize his kin so that he can wear the finest silks, drink foreign wine and buy girls for his harem. Like the mighty gods who demand sacrifice and tribute and repay doubt with death.

Of course now that I've built up what I'm going for, you can only be disappointed with the execution. But this is only meant as a starting point. Do better and we'll build upon our efforts like a pyramid. A Great Pyramid of LEGOS! *cough* Or something.

You can only put "sacrifice a creature" on so many cards, but as a mythic rare Great Pharaoh stands at the top of the food chain, consuming the strength of the masses to ensure his own immortality.

Gold counters seem like a reasonable mechanic to consider when greed is the underlying theme. Do they play differently enough? We can make them. What if gold is really expensive to gain, but really powerful? The sacrifice effect on High Priest might seem black, but maybe everyone's willing to pay whatever it takes for gold in Ankh-Theb.

Another take on the black pharaoh, this time presenting an early pass at an ability word that could suffuse the set. Like landfall, dominate asks you to value cards a bit differently than usual while rewarding you for doing what you want to do anyhow. In this case, you want to play a lot of creatures. Dominate isn't as game-changing as landfall so it's not ready to headline any sets yet and it has other problems like the amount of counting players will be forced to do when they've got a few dominating creatures of different costs.

But it's a step in the direction of showing the struggle for power that the big players in Ankh-Theb hold so dearly, and the way they'll use anyone beneath them to ensure their place in history.

Presenting a rare and two mythics that are enticing is kind of cheating. These cards are strong enough to turn heads regardless of the egyptian-ness of their rules text. But I did that to try and show potential and spark interest enough to get you all brainstorming the better mechanics and the set-defining commons that drive home the greed and ambition of Ankh-Theb.

Now, go, my minions, into the ni—What's that, you're not my minions? Pfft, next your going to say I'm not a divine ruler nor sovereign over all the land, much less Lower Merion county. Crap, my taxes are due!