Cool Card Design of the Day7/10/2015 - Today's WAC is coming, but first I wanted to share some phoenixes I designed too late for Remaking Magic's legendary phoenix design challenge.
Legends are for Commander, right?
In retrospect, Caraphax doesn't warrant legendary.
The cost on Cosmic Phoenix's free recursion is that it kills your team and you, if you're not careful.
Creature's returning from death is such a black thing that when I found this art, I had to make a black-red phoenix. What makes a thing legendary is how unlike the rest of its kind it is, color included.
Promethea was designed after listening to the results. I suspect the template is wrong; it's intended to be able to trigger from the graveyard as well as the battlefield.
I quite like Caraphax Unborn, though it's probably too strong. Maybe cheaper/smaller and put it into your hand? Or exile it when it dies.
ReplyDeleteEspecially as a legend you could play the second one (assuming you have 4) and then cascade into the second and third one in awkward but good for graveyards fashion.
It's kind of absurd that there's never been a legendary phoenix, since a major part of the mythology is that there's only one...
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that part of the mythology. Neat.
DeletePang Tong's feelings are hurt. :c
DeleteI love Carphax and Promethea. They're really phoenix-y while doing something other than recurring.
ReplyDeleteI just realized that Promethea being legendary means you'll never be excited to recur all the copies you have of her in your deck. Dang. An ETB or death effect would fix that, but I'm reluctant to sully such an epic ability. Probably better to make her non-legendary.
DeleteLegends are hard.
Minor problem, but I think Cosmic Phoenix needs to say "would be destroyed", since as written, you can sacrifice it as many times as you want, and the interaction with -x/-x effects is really weird.
ReplyDeleteIf you tragic slip it, it deals 66 damage to everything, which is sweet, but probably not what you want :)
DeleteCorrection: 78 damage.
DeleteTriggering on sacrifice is definitely a problem. I'd add "if it wasn't sacrificed."
DeleteNot seeing how Tragic Slip does anything other than kill it once and have it return slightly bigger.
It never leaves the battlefield, so the -13/-13 never goes away. It'll be a -11/-11, and instead if dying, it get's a +1/+1 counter, becoming a -10/-10 and dealing 1, then it tries to die again, gets another counter, deals 2, and is a -9/-9, and so on until it has 12 counters so it's a 1/1.
DeleteSo, you can't regenerate a creature from Tragic Slip?
DeleteRegenerate target creature. (The next time that creature would be destroyed this turn, it isn't. Instead tap it, remove all damage from it, and remove it from combat.)
Using "would be destroyed" instead of "would die" solves the sacrifice problem. It doesn't explain how regenerate works against non-positive toughness.
DeleteNo you can't regenerate from toughness <= 0, since it's not actually being destroyed, it's simply put the graveyard and a state-based action. Similarly, indestructible creatures are still killed by -x/-x effects. It's one of the reasons that regeneration is out of favor right now, it's pretty unintuitive.
DeleteI don't remember ever knowing that about regeneration. Crazy.
DeleteThanks for illuminating me, Jade.
Updating the card...