CCDD 041818 - Spoils

Larcent's article Monday had me thinking about a mechanic that could have used the treasures that Ixalan's Pirates kept creating (finding? stealing? conjuring?). I tried to find a mana sink mechanic that wasn't kicker or a variation thereon, and came up with this.

The Pirate Problem: Flavor Doesn't Make a Tribe

By Larcent

I've been playing in the beta for Magic: The Gathering Arena since February. My experience in this very limited game environment has helped me think a lot about tribal design, particularly where Ixalan block succeeded and failed. Let's talk about Pirates and figure out what the heck happened with them, design-wise.

Comparing the Limited play of Unstable, Ixalan & M25

Ixalan is the least dynamic Limited format we've had in perhaps a decade. The problem is that the only supported archetypes are tribal and there are only four tribes. We get a bit of flexibility in pirates and dinosaurs since they're both three-color tribes, but there is zero cross-tribal support and apart from the difficult-to-draft explore deck and flying deck, there are no alternatives.

Unstable is huge fun even when you ignore the silver-bordered silliness because the various mechanics you're invited to play are less strictly distributed between colors and there are a ton of bridges: Cards that reward players for mixing two different mechanics together.

Weekend Art Challenge 110317—Risachantag

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.

Weekend Art Challenge 092917—thegryph

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.

CCDD 092817—Swashbuckler

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/28/2017 - What if Ixalan hadn't pulled back so far on vehicles? One of the pirate mechanics could have been to work well with vehicles. I felt a little bad making just another Spireside Infiltrator but then I realized I wanted a slightly different effect. You see, at the time you tap an Infiltrator to crew a vehicle, it's trigger resolves before that vehicle becomes a creature, so you can't use "target creature you control gets BONUS until EOT" on the vehicle you just crewed. But if you make a static effect while your creature is tapped, then it affects your vehicles (and itself, and your other pirates).

CCDD 092717—taunt

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/27/2017 - This keyword doesn't have to be just for pirates, but I think it works well both flavor-wise and for the tribe's colors. For those of you who remember, it's basically the opposite of escort.

Weekend Art Challenge 092217—Surk3

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.

CCDD 092117—Sun-Crowned Hunters & Hadrosaur Pack

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/15/2017 - I wanted to design a couple of enrage dinosaurs to see what space was left unmined. The idea that stuck with me was that of a tiny dino that your opponent has to decide if they really want to enrage or just let through. The ability I wanted to use was already on Sun-Crowned Hunters but it has completely different meaning on a large creature, so:

CCDD 092017—territorial

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/20/2017 - It was mentioned on the mothership that monstrosity was briefly considered for Ixalan's dinosaur mechanic. I think enrage is great and wouldn't question that choice, but this still got me thinking about other ways we could express dinosaurs mechanically.

This idea started as when-you've-got-enough-lands-all-your-dinos-become-monstrous, so that we could have dinosaurs spread across the mana curve, but still become huge if you give them room to grow unrestricted.

Weekend Art Challenge 090117—AlexAlexandrov

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.

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.

Weekend Design Challenge 072817—Ixalan

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.