CCDD 113016—Tigra's Guidance

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/30/2016 - A couple of mana-fixing-until-you-don't-need-it commons.

Three-Headed In-Fighting

Here's the best way I know to play Magic with three players, a format I improvised over a decade ago during a Summer when my draft club was just three people and we were desperate.

Midweek Art Challenge 112816—kafine

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single card submission, due Wednesday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer some time on Thursday (possibly in the comments below, we'll see).

CCDD 112516—Dark Confidence

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/25/2016 - Retroactively posting this sorcery tribute to Dark Confidant.

CCDD 112416—Seprimus

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/24/2016 - One cornucopia of cards coming up. Happy Thanksgiving!

CCDD 112316—In Darkness, Opportunity

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/23/2016 - What if we could use extra mana to help protect our spells?

Spoiler: It's easy to fall into a trap sometimes.

CCDD 112216—Logic Gate

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/22/2016 - Logic Gate is preemptive countermagic like Lunar Force but with more control and less information. You decide when to counter a spell, but you don't know what spell it is until you've decided.

Weekend Art Challenge 111816—cobaltplasma

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single  card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer.

CCDD 111716—Bestial Call

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/17/2016 - Here are five variations on the same basic idea—rewarding vanilla creatures without increasing their stats—across three rarities.

Safety Techniques

Tabletop RPGs and LARPs have developed a number of safety techniques to help keep players safe during games. Some of them will adapt to tabletop games like Magic better than others, but they're all worth examination:

Welcoming Women into Magic

Women play Magic. That may not be your experience, but there's a reason for that. And we can do something about it. We must.

Weekend Art Challenge 111116—Apofiss

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer.

CCDD 111016—Briartooth & Sea Lionicorn

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/10/2016 - Most of the evoke creatures in Lorwyn were very strong and Briarhorn was no exception. It was a Giant Growth that gave you a 3/3 body for {3} mana more. On defense, you could boost a defender and make one, killing a small and a medium/large creature at no loss. You can even play it on it's own to kill an attacking 5/5. In Dark Ascension, we got Briarpack Alpha, which gave a reduced bonus and couldn't be alternately casted. Still good. Briartooth is an attempt to nerf this concept another way:

CCDD 110816—Dormant Dominator

Cool Card Design of the Day
111/8/2016 - Working on a big post I care a lot about, but today's just not the day. Instead, more easy readin'. Top-down from the art, this card borrows tech from vehicles we can use for cards like Glint Hawk Idol and Gruul War Plow.

CCDD 110716—Tempest Caller

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/7/2016 - Haste lord.

CCDD 110416—Pack Chase

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/4/2016 - Retroactive post. In the past, variations of this spell have been red. Proposing for green, ala Rabid Bite.

CCDD 110316—Multiwrench and Forgetting Desk

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/3/2016 - Here is a common utility artifact and a rare one.

Two Interesting Things I Noticed About Kaladesh Design

The first, most readily apparent thing I noticed about Kaladesh is the greatly increased power level of common creatures. The creatures in Eldritch Moon were notably more powerful too, but I chalked that up to small-set-power-upgrade (in which small sets get a bump to power level to help keep sales from dropping as interest in the block levels off). But here's a brand new, and very shiny block, raising the bar for common creatures.

CCDD 110116—Scrytastic Dual Land

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/1/2016 - Was thinking about costs small enough to fill the role of letting a land ETB untapped, and came up with this half-scry-half-etbt idea supporting two-color decks.