Wednesday, November 19, 2014

CCDD 111914—Smoke the Whole Box

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/19/2014 - Here's a reactive Johnny card. Can you see any uses for it?


13 comments:

  1. I guess they could cast Sign in Blood at a low life total?

    Narrow Johnny cards need to be something you can build a deck around. This one relies on your opponent's deck. I really don't see that working out.

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  2. The funniest use I can think of so far is to quadruplicate a non-targeting Pact and see them lose the game (assuming they can't pay 4x the pact cost)! :)

    Other things that occur to me are multiplying "each player loses N life" or "each player sacs a creature card". Duplicating a card with a significant life loss like Reckless Spite would be perfect, but most of them target so the copies would end up cancelled.

    But I also endorse Havelock's comment, it's really hard for any reactive spell to be interesting for our Johnny-sides, because you can't normally make an interesting plan, it only comes up if there's a dominant deck it happens to be an answer for.

    There are some spells that force opponents to cast spells, but they're mostly expensive johnny enchantments already, so I think it would be hard to get a good combo with it.

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    Replies
    1. Good examples.

      Naturally, this is more of a sideboard card or a failsafe against a ubiquitous deck. Does that make it Spike rather Johnny? Johnny-Spike?

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    2. I'm pretty sure it would read "Target opponent copies target instant or sorcery they control three times."

      I also thought of Pacts and Earthquakes. I suppose Genesis Wave for the lulz/to make someone mill themselves out. Or Caress of Phyrexia to win. I'm with zeff: this is a card for a multiplayer supplemental product to create stories. Like having somone do four Worst Fears: "Let's see what damage you can do to the Threat"

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  3. I could never see Wizards printing a card name that references child abuse.

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  4. This thing is bananas in multiplayer. It would be a nice supplemental product card.

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  5. A very clever design that I would probably rather not print, but if we have to print this kind of thing, I think this would be a great one.

    That said, this feels more Red to me than Black. If I were to take the flavor of "punish someone for doing something bad for them" to a non-red color, I would think White.

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  6. damn, I really needed to read this to many times to completly grasp this card! And it indeed feels more red than Black

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  7. If anyone ever cast Ad Nauseam without preceding it by Angel's Grace, that would be a good target for this. Likewise if anyone ever cast Imp's Mischief, Hail Storm, or Hellfire, those would work okay.

    Demonic Consultation, Tainted Pact, Diminishing Returns or False Memories have a rather higher chance of accidentally killing their caster. Epic Experiment too, though they'd probably kill you first with all their free stuff.

    Most +N/-N spells are used as removal, but the ones that are used on your own creatures like Defiling Tears or Flowstone Strike might be turnable into removal with this.

    A token player casting something like Barter in Blood, or a fatties playing casting something like Starstorm, would have a rather higher chance of losing their own things they'd been hoping to protect.

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  8. I *really* like this. This is a great flavour for an uber-johnny card. There's a part of me that feels it should be Red. Red copies things, Red is excessive. The cruelty element is very Black, but I think this is more Red than Black.

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