Tesla: Gearing Up

We've been looking for a way for Tesla to let players build their own machines. At the end of our last discussion Tommy Occhipinti proposed a tweak to the Artifactfall model where the machine does more every time you add a piece.

This latest take requires a few more words, but actually simplifies the base concept. Instead of a machine with a bunch of moving parts which double up when we add a new component, we get a machine that turns on every time we improve it.

CCDD 123014—Flailing Baspekt

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/30/2014 - When I found this design in my drafts folder, the ability was keyworded ('flailing'). I can see a handful of cards with this ability over as many years, but it's clearly not worth its own vocabulary.

I imagine it be to primary in green and secondary in black, maybe white. Thematically it could be red, but there just aren't many red creatures that would actually benefit from it.

Weekend Art Design Challenge Review 122614—Gilberto March

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

Weekend Art Challenge Review 121914—Syst-eeem

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

Weekend Art Design Challenge 122614—Gilberto March

Weekend Art Challenge
Greetings, artisans! Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though only the version rendered will be included in the review, if someone volunteers to render the cards.

A Train of Thought—Prowess & Creature-Spells

You are embarking a Magic Design train of thought. Destination: Unknown.

CCDD 122214—Gilded Archfriar

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/22/2014 - Gilded Archfriar lets you transmute cards from your hand into cards in your sideboard, effectively widening your repertoire by up to 15 spells.

Weekend Art Challenge 121914—Syst-eeem

Weekend Art Challenge
Greetings, artisans! Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though only the version rendered will be included in the review, if someone volunteers to render the cards.

CCDD 121814—Whisper of the Woods

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/18/2014 - The Fog variants from the last WAC made me realize there's been no simple Fog cantrip. For the most part, skilled drafters ignore Fog except as a sideboard response to cards like Overrun or Flying Crane Technique. Making it a cantrip should make it more main-deckable…

The trouble is that an efficient Fog cantrip would likely be just too good for Turbo-Fog, a deck that we're happy can exist, but is non-interactive enough that we don't want to ever be The Best Deck in any format.

Drafting Lands in Khans of Tarkir

This will look like a strategy article at first blush, but the strategy is one everyone who's drafted Khans of Tarkir more than a few times should already know, and that I assume has already been written about a dozen times; this post is more about the design that led to the strategy.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 121214—PE Travers

Weekend Art Challenge Review
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CCDD 121514—Gold Dragons 2

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/15/2014 - Last week I posted four R-D dragons and Evan made an important observation: "The white, blue, and black ones all feel like they could be monocolored examples of those colors' respective iconics." And he was dead-on. The white one could easily be a mono-white angel; the blue one would make an odd sphinx, but is monoblue; and the black one would be an unusal demon but is monoblack. Clearly, these dragons have to feel as red as they do their second color, and they have to feel more like dragons than not.

Here's another go:

Weekend Art Challenge 121214—PE Travers

Weekend Art Challenge
Greetings, artisans! Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though only the version rendered will be included in the review, if someone volunteers to render the cards.

Tesla: Momma Didn't Raise No Rube

A couple weeks back our Tesla discussion turned towards ways for players to build their own machines. We got a few ideas there and started by exploring sharing abilities directly.

But I don't think that's our best approach. Let's take a look at what I believe to be some more promising directions.

CCDD 121114—Gold Dragons

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/11/2014 - I happened upon a Question Mark or similar about how we see red's iconic creature in every color, which is obviously an odd thing to do with a color's iconic and something we see almost none of with the other color's iconics. The answer, of course, is that dragons are everyone's favorite creature type in Fantasy and pretty much everywhere else.

To that end, I propose a cycle of dragons for each color that are also red, so that each color can have their dragon-y fun without robbing red of its iconic creature.

CCDD 121014—Recanter of Realities & Inevitable Revival

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/10/2014 - These would currently be silver-bordered. I'm not saying they should be black-bordered, but I do think the question is worth examining.

CCDD 120914—Oaknock Expert

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/9/2014 - Mike's submission got me thinking about champion.

Why do champions exile a creature of their own kind? You could say they're protecting those creatures, shielding them from all possible harm as long as they last, but then why would having a creature be a requirement?

Here's another way to express similar flavor.

Weekend Design Challenge Review 120214—Unfulfilled Promise

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

Weekend Design Challenge 120214—Unfulfilled Promise

Weekend Design Challenge
Greetings, artisans! Click through to see this weekend's challenge and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though only the version rendered will be included in the review, if someone volunteers to render the cards.

CCDD 120414—Miner of Secrets

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/4/2014 - Inspired by Tommy's Helpful Familiar, here's a red Stealer of Secrets.

CCDD 120314—Searing Armory

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/3/2014 - Inspired by Czynski's Flame Aurora, Searing Armory looks for more ways to remove the card disadvantage of Crushing Pain. Turns out, affecting multiple creatures does the trick nicely.

CCDD 120214—Volcanic Musing

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/2/2014 - Explosive Revelation meets Act on Impulse. Inspired by Reuben's Flare of Inspiration.

Sometimes you get one spell and sometimes you get a land as well. My favorite thing is that the less damage the revealed spell causes, the more likely you are to afford to cast it.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 112814—MaliciaRoseNoire

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