CCDD 060718—GDS3 Jury-Rig

Cool Card Design of the Day
For the mechanic challenge in GDS3, I built and tested a number of mechanics. Jury-Rig was my next choice. You might recognize it from 2016. Originally, Jury-Rig had a variable cost; In testing I found that having two different costs for a bunch of cards made knowing how to play your hand far too much work. So I stole the best part of another mechanic (I'll tell that story another time) and simplified Jury-Rig to always cost {3}; That way you can evaluate your hand with the costs you see printed and just one more.

Jury-Rig is quite simple. You can get your card for just {3} but you only get to use it for one turn. It appears strictly on artifacts, and primarily on expensive artifact creatures, all of which have 1+ colors.

Because Jury-Rig grants the creature haste, it looks a lot like dash. Steel Steed is a Goblin Heelcutter, except it dies at EOT instead of going back to your hand. The upside is that it only costs colorless mana to Jury-Rig, which isn't much, but the Steed is also an artifact and there are a lot of cards that reward you for playing and sacrificing artifacts. (I also didn't make Steel Steed stronger because Goblin Heelcutter is quite pushed for a common. The Steed would do fine in its context.)

Since Jury-Rig is an alternate casting cost, it interacts with casting modifiers like flash, letting Imperial Guard surprise-block an X/2.

All things be equal, Jury-Rig cards want to use death triggers rather than ETB triggers, so that players feel good about their Clockwork Confessors dying.

Using both triggers also feels good, as Cybernetic Wellspring demonstrates. Also: Jury-Rig isn't strictly limited to creature artifacts.

You're starting to notice a lot of Jury-Rig cards cost less than 3. In some cases, that's acting as a colorless back-up casting cost when you can't play your creature normally (and in Articulated Roboa's case, it gives you a bit of smoothing to help you out of that spot).

Tin Woodsman can fix your mana reliably on turn 3, or you can build it with green mana for incremental value.

And in others it's because having it enter and die in the same turn is situationally stronger. Mechanical Mage can dig you two cards closer to what you really need.

Sometimes you're Jury-Rigging just to get a haste creature with which to surprise the opponent. Hell's Servitor will rarely be blocked when your opponent doesn't see it coming.

Robo-Rover can grant itself haste on turn 2, and keep your team fast as long as it survives. Or, if you draw it late, you can Jury-Rig it to add two attackers no one saw coming.

The nice thing about death triggers over ETB triggers is that you haven't necessarily spent your mana casting a spell this turn. Volcano Golem does some great work as a 4/4 that threatens a Blaze every round. That you can Jury-Rig it on turn 10, get 4 points of hasty power, and deal ~3 damage where you please is a pretty nice option.

Scrap Shambler asks, "Why not capitalize on all those artifacts we're throwing in the graveyard?"

Jury-Rig a 3/3 for {3} or slow-cast Clockwork Hydra as an X/X for {X}{G}?

In the spots where you know you're sacrificing your Eldrazi Monument next turn anyhow, why not pay {3} instead?

As a blue-black rare, Exarch of the Singularity is all about Value, obv.

Notice how Shivan Dragon's quicksilver friend, Mercury Dragon will usually have spare {R} with which to breathe its hasty fire.

Jury-Rig is perfect on a Clone, as Shoddy Replicant shows.

Hypnotic Specter could hit on turn 2 via Dark Ritual and keep up the pressure thereafter, whereas Steel Specter can only hit on turn 3 and just once, and that's about as much a taste of that greatness as we can afford.

Who doesn't love a super-expensive artifact that gives you lots of bonuses over-time? Shrine of Ish-Behah also cycles for value in the early-game.

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Of course we can specifically call out cards that have been Jury-Rigged. Clacking Shade may not be a Crypt Ripper over several turns, but it packs much more of a surprise mid- to late-game.

Vehicles are artifacts / artifact creatures. And if you're short on crew, you can Jury-Rig your Goblin Mech-Suit to work without one.

1/1 Goblin or Spark Elemental? Mechanical Goblin lets you decide.

Since it costs us a card in most cases, we really want Jury-Rig to give us a lot of value. Forcing blocks or getting your saboteur through does that for Shining Steed.

Who's got time to pay equip costs when there are opponents that need spirit-stabbing?

Jury-Rig is the marshmallow test in a lot of ways. Temporal Gate asks: Would you rather get two 1/1 fliers for {4} or a Whirlermaker for life?

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Support cards

Obviously, we need a card that grants our mechanic to other cards. Academy Curator lets your Jury-Rig Mindslaver or Blightsteel Colossus, y'know, if you're into that.

"Let's launch some of that steaming scrap at the enemy.!"

{3}'s so much. Why not {2}? (Or {0} with three Desert Drakerunners.)

"It is a flaw in the design of my flesh counterparts that they cannot overload themselves to reign sweet lightning over their enemies."

Goblin Appraiser is just one example of how the set might reward casting lots of artifacts.

If you really hate how Jury-Rig isn't Dash, Persistent Mechanic makes it Dash.

As we saw in Imperial Guard with flash (and Desert Drakerunner with cost-reduction), the ability to combine Jury-Rig with other casting modifiers means we can do some pretty sideways things with the mechanic. Whiskered Fixer reanimating dead artifacts is a pretty sweet example.

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Jury-Rig can go on any artifact, creature or otherwise (though its best on colored artifacts). That, combined with the casting modifiers just mentioned, makes it a very flexible permanent mechanic. When I claimed it was mostly Dash above, I omitted its subtler similarity to Morph in its ability to help you cast your cards, or how many executions will actually play a lot closer to Evoke than Dash.

I didn't submit Jury-Rig for GDS3 because it felt the least novel, but I do have a lot of faith in it as a mechanic.

Design a Jury-Rig card or support in the comments.