Thursday, August 14, 2014

CCDD 081414—Tao Keeper & Zephyr Duelist

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/14/2014 - I'm trying a couple things here. First, I want to show a bad-ass Fantasy character with a disability, representing that disability mechanically, but with a positive tone overall. Second, it occurs to me that the Charging Rhino ability can be expressed as a cost rather than a restriction, and that the Goblin War Drums ability is as good on small creatures as it is on big ones (for different reasons).



I worked hard to find compelling Fantasy flavor that is empowering rather than objectifying. I won't know how well or poorly I did unless someone with personal experience happens upon this. Even then, a single person couldn't speak for everyone with one arm, and there would likely be disagreement both within and without the group. My hope is that a majority in both groups would feel good about this representation, of course, but if they don't, I would love to hear their feedback on what they didn't like and what they would have.

Also, I'm pretty fond of these abilities on two-drops.

3 comments:

  1. I like the rewording for the Charging Rhino mechanic. Nice observation. I prefer the second implementation because the concept and mechanic are better connected. Tao Keeper has the arbitrary number-iness of Bushido. Why does it get +2/+0 and not +1/+1 or whatever. Oh! Another expression of this idea could be

    Focused Duelist 2W
    Creature - Human Soldier 2/2
    First strike
    Focused Duelist has double strike while blocked by a single creature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I considered double strike and decided it was a bit of a flavor fail for a single-armed character, particularly given its use on a lot of poly-armed / poly-headed creatures elsewhere.

      Delete
  2. If you want a super trolling version of this card:

    Tao Keeper has double strike as long as it's being blocked by more than one creature.

    ReplyDelete