Thursday, August 31, 2017

CCDD 083117—Breakwood Falconer

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/31/2017 - Tuesday I questioned whether Deeproot Champion was the best use of that rules text.
Today, I found a green creature in my CCDD folder with a noncreature spell trigger. Is one more justified than the other? Let's talk about that.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

CCDD 083017—What the Sea Becomes & The Sky Reflects Us

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/27/2017 - It's always bothered me that cards like Clone give you the option not to copy something, as if you'd ever prefer to have a 0/0 with no abilities. Rather than worry about the rules implications of making that action mandatory, what if we try to make the choice relevant?

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

CCDD 082917—Regal Bastion & Raider's Encampment

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/29/2017 - There are numerous ways to restrict when a land can best fix your colors, but one we've seen almost none of is the timing restriction. Today's card pairs a timing restriction with an event that you usually have no control over but can generally expect regardless:

Friday, August 25, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 082517—OmeN2501

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.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

CCDD 082417—Jund Iguana

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/24/2017 - I wanted to pair firebreathing, the Rootwalla ability, and some black activated ability via stepped costs. This is the result.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

CCDD 082317—Twinned

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/27/2017 - I was working on a keyword called 'emulate' which would let you play cards from your hand as copies of the spell with emulate. Some iterations were exactly that, others cost more or had a reduced effect. One had a variable effect based on the card's real CMC, so that you could pay more and get more out of your copies (or pay less and get less)

Ultimately all of those executions suffered the same problem. Emulate is too recursive and noninteractive. Games are less interesting when we cast the same spell over and over, and less fun when there's nothing we can do to end such shenanigans.

How can we salvage the core idea—to let you discard useless cards to cast more of the spells you need right now—without promoting boring and frustrating games?

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

CCDD 082217—Wanderwine Hub

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/27/2017 - This is mostly less powerful than the actual Wanderwine Hub, but it's also more sensical. It just seems silly how often you reveal a merfolk card and then immediately cast that same card. And it's not like revealing a merfolk and then doing something else with your mana makes any more sense.

Friday, August 18, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 081817—LuisMelon

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.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

CCDD 081717—Will Golem

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/17/2017 - The idea with Will Golem is that it's wicked powerful if you've got a ton of mana, but you've got to do every little thing to keep it running.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

CCDD 081617—Crystal Growth

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/16/2017 - I wanted to make a Rampant Growth that's free once you have enough land, and ended up continuing the basic land theme in order to prevent it from untapped Gaea's Cradle and friends.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

CCDD 081517—Rigged to Blow

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/15/2017 - Here's an aura that can change the flow of the game in a number of ways.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 081117—DiegoGisbertLlorens

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.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

CCDD 081017—Improviser Mage

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/27/2017 - Choose your own ETB-effect.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

CCDD 080917—Gaea's Lieutenant

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/9/2017 - I'll bet you can guess which product inspired today's design.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

CCDD 080817—Primed

Cool Card Design of the Day
8/8/2017 - Primed is a cost reduction mechanic that rewards you for playing a lot of cards of the same color and plays well (possibly too well) with devotion.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 080417 — bobkehlluchoinzunza // RedRoofArt

It's Friday, Artisans! Art challenge time. Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning (or whenever I start doing my reviews). Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've done a design, tell someone else what's working (and what isn't) about their's. Revise as many times as you want, and I'll make an educated guess what your final card is actually supposed to look like, for which I will offer a review.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

CCDD 080317 - Goblin Game 2016 Results, Part 2

Continuing yesterdays 19-month old renders, enjoy some more Goblins!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

CCDD 080217 - Goblin Game 2016 Results, Part 1

Hey Artisans. Every January during Goblin Week I run a twitter design thingy where I toss out a Goblin-Related design prompt and artwork, and you guys make a goblin. I never rendered the results from the last two years, but there are some fun goblins designs there, so I thought I'd pull them up and let you have a look.