CCDD 043114—Flourish

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/30/2014 - Flourish lets you choose between a more powerful effect, or a cantrip (but you pay for it either way).

CCDD 042914—Crimson Panther

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/29/2014 - I came to this design while thinking about defensive green spells. At some point, I thought it would be more interesting to make a creature that could be defended by a variety of spells than a spell that could defend a variety of creatures. I'm not sure that's true and this design has flaws, but it's worth discussing:

Weekend Art Challenge 042514 Review—AndyParkArt

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Here's the challenge we're reviewing today.

Weekend Art Challenge 042514—AndyParkArt

Weekend Art Challenge
Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which I will try to provide, and which everyone is welcome to provide as well.

If you choose, you may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times. I will post and review the most recent submission from each designer some time on Monday, life permitting. To help ensure I recreate your design accurately, please use CARDNAME instead of ~ in your submissions.

CCDD 042414—Pack Walla

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/24/2014 - I played Magic on Easter with my nephew is transitioning from Duels of the Planeswalkers to paper Magic. I also played with another niece and nephew and did a lot of teaching. This is where I learned viscerally how terrible the hand limit is. But this post is about a cool idea one of them gave me.

CCDD 042314—Spike Bait

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/23/2014 - A friend put together the Gatherer-Terrible Cube and we played last night. It was a blast. We did 2HG where my Andradite Leech was basically unstoppable, my partner drew her Pus Kami when she had 8 mana and a spirit in her graveyard, but Grollub never ever attacked or blocked. Ethan talks in that article about the kinds of cards that made the cube, but what stood out most to me were the cards that were legitimately good, but had been rated low because they had an optional ability that was unappealing.

An important aspect of Limited is including cards of various power levels so that some are obviously good to players new and old alike, and some are obviously bad, but there are also cards in between that stronger players can identify and use. It occurs to me that those don't always have to be subtle:

CCDD 042214—You Need to Change

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/22/2014 - This is a silly flavor expression for this design, but I couldn't resist.

Weekend [Art] Challenge 041814—Journey into Nyx

Weekend Art Challenge
Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your single, final submission is due by Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which I will try to provide, and which everyone is encouraged to provide as well. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times. If and only if you provide a direct link to art for your submission, and the artist's name, will I mock it up and include it in a follow-up review.

CCDD 041714—Two-Headed Dog

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/17/2014 - Ehhh.

CCDD 041614—Mental Infestation

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/16/2014 - I was designing a card with a mechanic I knew was iffy at best, and while trying to find a discard effect worth 1.5 mana, came up with this idea which I immediately extracted for its own card. And that's why you needn't avoid seemingly dead-ends.

CCDD 041514—Fiery Reflection

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/15/2014 - Fiery Reflection is a Shock with a Reverberate added on. Or, it's a Reverberate with a Shock added on. The best part is that you can always choose to copy itself for two Shocks when there are no better targets.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 041114—Volkan Baga (Archangel's Light)

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Here's the challenge we're reviewing today.

Weekend Art Challenge 041114—Volkan Baga (Archangel's Light)

Weekend Art Challenge
Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which I will try to provide, and which everyone is welcome to provide as well.

If you choose, you may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times. I will post and review the most recent submission from each designer some time on Monday, life permitting. To help ensure I recreate your design accurately, please use CARDNAME instead of ~ in your submissions.

Sonnet #5: To Ajani, Mentor of Heroes

Is Scuttlemutt thy closest friend? Why, mage,

Dost thou revise thy color choice so soon?

First white as virgin snow, then red with rage,

And now more green than hellebore in June.

'Tis true that other planeswalkers have strayed

And, seeking novelty, old shades foregone;

On Garruk's soul corruption's veil was laid

And Sarkhan lost his mind as Bolas' pawn.

Are these the champions thou wouldst emulate?

Wilt thou next kneel in an Orzhov nave?

Turn skyknight and defend Prahv's regal gate?

Or grovel as an Elder Dragon's slave?

Alack! A bold white leonin and true

Should not be a chameleon in hue.

CCDD 041014—Battlefield Executioner

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/10/2014 - Royal Assassin is no fun to play against when you can't find removal for it (and aren't packing an all-vigilance army), but it's such a powerful idea. How much of that can we recapture in something a little more interactive?

CCDD 040914—Illusion of Power

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/9/2014 - I'm curious how quickly you can guess the two blue cards I count as direct inspiration for this design.

New Player Perspectives: Session 5

[New Player Perspectives is the ongoing story of my non-gamer girlfriend's introduction to Magic.]

Finally, a game with no mulligans! Freyja decided to take her W/U deck back, leaving me with G/B. Lifelink creatures helped me get ahead in the race early, and she missed her fifth land drop for several turns. After some trades, I threatened to close out the game with Axebane Stag. She fought him off with Griptide, Voidwielder, and eventually chump block + Paralyzing Grasp. We hit a ground stall and played off the top briefly. She pulled a Moon Heron, but I had tons of life and found some Pheres-Band Centaurs, which managed to finish her off. Victory at last.

By this point, she was getting used to untapping before drawing, but it was still unnatural. We realized between this game and the previous one that power and toughness were still a bit mysterious in how they interacted. I clarified that mid-game, after which she understood blocking decisions much better. The sticking point was that the P/T comparisons require a "swap"; that is, you compare creature A's power to creature B's toughness, and vice versa.

CCDD 040814—Pain Song

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/8/2014 - Pain Song is a much-less proactive Sanguimancy. Instead of asking you to build up a small army, this asks you to lose life. My preferred version is the sorcery, which appeals to Johnny because he's got to figure out how to lose life on his own turn, perhaps by playing it after Sanguimancy.

CCDD 040714—Overdose

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/7/2014 - I'm not 100% sure a card like this should exist, but it can tell two different epic stories, as well as a third combination story. I'm not 50% sure the colors are right. I didn't even try to guess the cost.

New Player Perspectives: Interlude

[New Player Perspectives is the ongoing story of my non-gamer girlfriend's introduction to Magic.]

One of Freyja's piano students, upon discovering that his teacher was learning to play Magic, excitedly volunteered to build her a deck. She brought in the box of several hundred miscellaneous commons and uncommons that I've been using as raw materials. During his sibling's half-hour lesson, the happy student came up with this concoction. I post the following decklist as a testament to our woefully inadequate understanding of what Magic players like.

Bant Aggro

3 Forest 2 Golgari Guildgate 1 Haunted Fengraf 2 Island 4 Plains 1 Unknown Shores 1 Agent of Horizons 2 Lagonna-Band Elder 1 Leafcrown Dryad 3 Scorned Villager 1 Seacoast Drake 1 Setessan Griffin 1 Staunch-Hearted Warrior 1 Triton Shorethief 1 Yoked Ox 2 Aqueous Form 1 Battlewise Valor 1 Commune with the Gods 1 Glimpse the Future 1 Ordeal of Nylea 1 Feudkiller's Verdict

CCDD 040314—Murk Stenchling & Emboggen

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/3/2014 - Its important to green's identity that it is the color that gets mana acceleration, and "mana elves," but what if there were a block where it was important for another color to get a little? I claim that it would be in black, and could look something like this. (Assuming we're looking for indefinite mana acceleration, as opposed to red's well-carved claim on one-turn mana acceleration.)

CCDD 040214—Servant of Pharika

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/2/2014 - Based on today's Planeswalker Guide, I wanted to paint a worshiper of Pharika who either uses drugs and poisons to murder others and resurrect herself, or who is rewarded with prolonged life by her god when she poisons someone else.

New Player Perspectives: Session 4

[New Player Perspectives is the ongoing story of my non-gamer girlfriend's introduction to Magic.]

Freyja tends to get drowsy in the evening, and was more or less asleep for both of these games. We traded decks for the first time, giving me W/U tempo and her B/G fatties. I promptly mulliganed to four Plains and a Stealer of Secrets, whereas she kept a one-lander but peeled land after land. I was still able to put up a fight for a few reasons: she didn't know how important it was to block Stealer of Secrets, and used combat tricks and removal inefficiently. (Giant Growth on Giant Spider pre-combat, Pharika's Cure on my Soulmender, etc.) At the end of the game, she realized it was okay to throw away creatures on an attack for lethal.

I mulled to five again in the second game and got soundly trounced.

CCDD 040114—Aetherwurm

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/1/2014 - I feel like someone posted an idea similar to this simplified version of offering, but the downside of having such a creative community is that it can be hard to go back and find a specific idea from the big pile of great ideas.