Cool Card Design of the Day4/30/2015 - Modern sets are full of strange exceptions to the normal color pie which have been grandfathered in for mechanical balance or exceptional flavor.
Those are worthwhile tradeoffs, but in order to keep players from thinking everything is fair game we should make them feel as in-color as possible. Red's not very big on recursion, so how might one tackle the Phoenix?
Is it deliberate that if it dies while attacking I can't cast it this turn? That makes this awfully slow if it is supposed to be an aggressive Red card. Rarity?
ReplyDeleteOverall, definitely a positive. I think Dragons and Phoenixes weaken the color pie a lot. On the other hand, I do think Red's color pie needs more stuff.
Sorry if it's hard to see the symbol, this is a rare. As for the slowness, other wordings either get messy or make some number of players think they can cast it when they normally couldn't when it dies on an opponent's turn. On top of that, I think the flavor's better if it really feels like it died before it comes back.
DeleteIf it turns out to be too slow, I'd opt for reducing power and adding haste.
What's wrong with "until the end of your next turn"?
DeleteAnd yeah, I squinted at the symbol and still couldn't tell what color it was.
Oh I see, that's the wording you are worried would make a new player think they could cast it a time they can't.
DeleteI think it want's "can't block" to avoid being too obnoxious, which makes it so it will nearly always die on your turn. I think that closes the loophole enough?
I love the idea. I'd advocate for a 2/2 with haste rather than a 3/1.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the more I think about it the more I become convinced that's the better route.
DeleteOh, cool. I think red officially gets phoenixes, but it's nice to see one with a more red recursion effect. I love the design space opened up by that design.
ReplyDeleteI could also see "When ~ dies, you may cast it immediately."
ReplyDeleteOoh, I like that! Probably do both on separate phoenixes a few years apart.
DeleteIs the flying or the recursive aspect more of a push for the color pie? It's hard to just argue from history when it comes to color - red does have constructed notables like Hammer of Bogardan and Punishing Fires outside of its actual Phoenixes; and Dragons (and whelps) cloud the issue on the other side.
ReplyDeleteReally both, but there's no way I can think of to make something feel like a phoenix without flying, so I'm trying to address what I can.
DeleteAs for the other recursion in red, there are three total examples in Magic (the other being Rekindled Flame) and I'm not really convinced they should be mono red.
Hm? There's a fair tradition of burn spells that can come back from the graveyard. Set-specific themes like Flame Jab and Firebolt are one thing, but there's also old-school things like Death Spark and the somewhat more recent Thunderblade Charge.
DeleteWhat do you reckon colour-pie-wise to Surreal Memoir? It's similar to Anarchist which seems to still be red, but does it trespass outside the pie?
I've always wondered why exactly it's so important that red be one of the colors that is weak on flying - it seems to me that black could easily lose flying from its iconics (demons and vampires don't HAVE to fly the way dragons and Phoenix do) and that black has one of the bigger slices of the pie and red clearly has the smallest...
ReplyDeleteGood question! It's been set by a lot of the "deal damage to _ creature(s) without flying cards" which I think are partially flavor calls - Seismic Stomp comes to mind.
DeleteAt common, flying or evasion in red is also just really strong and competes with burn as a form of reach. After an aggressive start in Limited, red flyers could win a lot of games and make cards like Lava Axe unnecessary.