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.
Stroll Down Memory Lane is just a nod to
Gravepurge, a card I think does the Reclaim 'thing' a lot better. It's not really innovative, but it is interesting. Being able to get back noncreatures makes this a lot stronger, but compared to
Restock, I thought this could be an acceptable cost. I decided to keep it an instant, even though green has never actually had
Recollect at instant speed, in order to preserve the better playability when you cast this on your opponent's end step to get your second return immediately.
However, I want to explore some more unique space, so I moved on from this design.
Here's another, one I think will be much more interesting to playtest. It starts as a Reclaim, but with the addition of scry 3, it gets very interesting. You can double-check what your reclaimed card would be 'replacing', and decide to move it down a few turns, or even just bottom it entirely. Perhaps it's just unfun to decide to bottom what you just worked hard to return, though... I have a feeling this won't play very well, but I felt it an interesting enough space - and conundrum - to share today! Do note that the 'scry 3', when you return a card, really becomes more like 'scry 2'! Does it make it more playable? I think so!
What do you think of the '
Reclaim effect'? How would you try to improve it?
I like Stroll. Probably fine at +{2} over Gravepurge, though we'd definitely want to test it.
ReplyDeleteI get how the scry on Savor is an upside, but it sends a really weird message. I prefer Grapple with the Past.
Riffing on Stroll to make a new Reclaim variant:
ReplyDeleteRemember Past Lives {G}
Sorcery (rare)
Put your graveyard on top of your library in any order.
Maybe it wants to cost more and cantrip.
Maybe it wants to put them on top in a random order. Maybe then scry.
It's a potentially huge effect, but very hard to use optimally. For Jenny.