Eternal Analysis 006—Inspire

Inspire is one of my very favorite mechanics. When you draw a unit while you control an inspire ability, that unit becomes permanently enhanced.

CCDD 103018—Land of Memories

Cool Card Design of the Day
Lands that sacrifice to do something are of great utility, cycling from play when you no longer need so much mana, and providing something of use. They also tend to be a touch dangerous or wicked expensive. This one's free, limited in power, but still useful.

CCDD 102918—Promise Safety

Cool Card Design of the Day
Fatal Blow / Crushing Pain effects are hard to do well, because they're removal spells that don't work on their own. Anything really worth casting a spell to kill that isn't already trumped by one of your creatures is probably killing the blocker you use to prime your spell, so you're often 2:1'ing yourself. If black-red had more 1/4s, that might help.

Anyhow, I found a really nice way to even out the card EV here.

Eternal Analysis 005—Tribute

Tribute is one of Eternal's poorer keywords, which is a shame because it's so close to being morbid.

Eternal Analysis 004—Merchants

Eternal doesn't have sideboarding per se, but in June, the fourth set introduced the Market meant to act as a sort of live sideboard, via a cycle of five merchants.

CCDD 102418—Keeper of the Maze

Cool Card Design of the Day
I wanted to explore the idea of the minotaur guarding the labyrinth (based on a conversation from Beacon of Creation). The idea of rewarding player's for using their gates to cast it appealed, because of the gate's original relevance to Ravnica's implicit maze (see Maze's End), as well as Castmire's labyrinthine nature and potential use of gates.

CCDD 102318—Gaea's Benediction

Cool Card Design of the Day
I found this Gaea's Blessing variant while ideating on a Beacon of Creation challenge. It didn't end up fulfilling the challenge, but it's interesting enough to share.

Eternal Analysis 003—Warcry

Warcry is my pick for the most fun and distinctive mechanic in Eternal. Whenever a creature with warcry attacks, the top unit of your deck gets +1/+1. That's so simple, and so compelling!

CCDD 101918—mystery

Cool Card Design of the Day
In the last Beacon of Creation podcast I listened to (I'm a bit behind), they speculated briefly about a mystery card type / mechanic and how that might interact with clues. It seemed like having a clue should help you solve a mystery. Here are five executions of that idea.

CCDD 101818—Rogue Tutor, Steal & Premature Autopsy

Cool Card Design of the Day
A few weeks back, Beacon of Creation proposed the challenge: Design a black draw spell that doesn't cost you life or creatures. Nice. I was late to submit, but here are some thoughts.

CCDD 101718 — Memories of Reclaim

Cool Card Design of the Day

Doing some idle research today, I remembered the card Reclaim exists, and I'm still not quite sure why. (Only mostly kidding.) But it got me thinking about other, hopefully more playable, ways to use such a natural effect.

CCDD 101618 — Making Mischief: Trick or Treat!

Like my costume?

Cool Creepy Card Design of the Day

I'm a big fan of Halloween! So today, let's begin the fiendish festivities of the spookiest season with a mechanic celebrating it!

Eternal Analysis 002—Power Cards

Sigils are power cards that work exactly like basic lands. There are also three cycles of dual power cards in all ten faction pairs, three cycles of mono-colored power cards, and a few unaffiliated power cards.

Eternal Analysis 001—Warp

Back in July, I gave a comparative introduction to Eternal Card Game, and a very high-level analysis. I've been playing the game compulsively since then, even to the exclusion of Magic Online and Arena, which feel frankly prehistoric to me now. I have a ton of deeper thoughts about Eternal, so I'm going to start sharing them with you.

Let's start with one of my least favorite mechanics: Warp.

CCDD 101118—Riddle of the Sphinx

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here are two variations of a spell that supports Sphinx-tribal.

CCDD 101018 — Seeker of Riddles

Cool Card Design of the Day

While Dragons and Angels are popular enough to warrant dedicated tribal themes, how could smaller-time iconics like Sphinxes get tribal cards without being too narrow? Well, here's one idea.

CCDD 100918–Five-Aether Discount

Cool Card Design of the Day

A slight change of rules text changes a moderately useful build-around effect into a powerful removal spell.

CCDD 100818—Brass Once Land

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a slightly radical land design.

CCDD 100518—Unravel the Guildpact

Cool Card Design of the Day

I was thinking about the last two Weekend Design Challenges; both the one two weeks ago where I asked for Bolas's plans and the psychographic design challenge from Inanimate. 

CCDD 100418—Goblin Liaison

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a design I apparently saved from Zefferal's 2016 Goblin Game.
This design came about top-down, but it suggests a vein of anti-tribal design. What merit does such a vein contain?

CCDD 100318—Aravor & Arala

Cool Card Design of the Day
This is an older design with heroic triggers meant to make it dangerous and resilient, but not for free. I imagine it would occasionally spark a back-and-forth of instants, but often just act like a hexproof token-eater.

CCDD 100218—Trivial Defense

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's an interesting card idea that could be better. I'm curious to see which of you think of the same improvement I am.