CCDD 053020 - Turn to Vapor

This design is inspired by Lignify and friends-- Darksteel Mutation, Kasmina's Transmutation, and so on. They often make their target useless for attacking, but leave it able to block. That can be a major drawback-- for example, if the target is The Locust God or a Commander or another creature with built-in recursion-- so I decided to make a version that plays somewhat differently.

CCDD 052820 - Towering Strider

What exactly is the flavor of trample, anyway? Are we supposed to imagine Proud Wildbonder literally running over a Pyroceratops, for example? Or is he just so fast and furious that his momentum carries him past the Dinosaur's corpse and into the opponent's face? I don't really have an answer, so this is just a long way of letting you know that I have no idea whether Towering Strider's ability makes sense.

CCDD 052520 - Goblin Savant

Nothing too fancy today, just a red one-drop in the vein of Foundry Street Denizen or Monastery Swiftspear.

CCDD 052220 - Brain Beam

We've seen the Erratic Explosion effect multiple times; many of the variants have some way of making up for the real feel-bad when you flip over a land. This version cuts to the chase and just has the land deal a reasonable amount of damage.

CCDD 052120 - Your Worst Nightmare

This design was inspired by effects like Vile Rebirth and Scarab Feast that black uses to interact with opponents' graveyards. Exiling even a whole graveyard is barely worth a card on its own most of the time-- Tormod's Crypt is evidence of that-- so the effects are often very cheap and have additional value stapled on. What would a higher-mana-cost version of those cards look like?

CCDD 051920 - Herald of Ula

As I run low on cool card design ideas I've started using the "random card" button for inspiration. Here's the first product of that. The card I got was Priest of the Wakening Sun, which tries to serve as small-creature support for Dinosaur tribal.

CCDD 051820 - Restrictive Priest

"Freeze" effects like Take Into Custody aren't in white's color pie. Discard effects aren't either. Can we make a case for giving it a mechanic that lets an opponent choose between the two?

Expressly Forbidden - Fixing the "Forbidden" Mechanic

This article is not WotC safe.

What's more tempting than the forbidden fruit?

It all began with one of our very first glimpses at an unprinted mechanic - an infamous one - from Avacyn Restored "devign". But it's gone so much further, and has taken on its own life...

Look, if you dare, at the forbidden cards contained within this sealed containment cell called an "article". Unlock, if you are willing to pay the price, overwhelming power by "reading more after the jump"...

CCDD 051420 - Kael of Clan Nel Toth

Here's a commander design! It started out as part of a cycle where I was trying to give common deck-building themes (e.g. spellslinger, +1/+1 counters) support in an unusual color combination. This one was for graveyard decks, as the name suggests.

CCDD 050620 - Press the Advantage

Today's card isn't too fascinating; I was just happy to find a nice clean design that's never been printed. Eliminate the Competition is a (mostly) strictly better effect for more mana, but this version makes the choice of X more interesting.

CCDD 050420 - Ritual Stone

Inspired by the discussion on a previous CCDD, here's a mana rock with a twist. Think of it as a reverse Mind Stone.

CCDD 050220 - Obstinate Elf

I honestly don't remember why I thought this design was so interesting. The first ability was the result of brainstorming how Obstinate Baloth-like effects, which green uses to punish discard, could be adapted to play well against Distress-like targeted discard spells.