CCDD 092420 - Phyrexian Control Center

This is a lot more powerful than most cards that make token armies-- Birthing Boughs, say-- but it comes with a critical (and flavorful) weakness.

CCDD 060420 - Phyrexian Prosthetic

I forget where I got the idea for this design. Maybe I was trying to come up with cool equip cost discounts, like the ones on Ghostfire Blade and Blackblade Reforged. Or maybe I was just trying to design a card for Tezzeret the Seeker's arm and got the lore mixed up.

CCDD 111714—Infect?

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/17/2014 - I discovered last night that the Weekend Art Challenge I had scheduled never went live. Sorry about that, artisans. Mid-week challenges have done poorly in the past, so I'll save it for this weekend. Instead, I'll be sure to post more CCDDs to discuss this week.

First up, I was listening to MaRo's Lessons Learned podcast about Scars of Mirrodin and it occurred to me to wonder if the set had to have -1/-1 counters. Consider this:

CCDD 051311—Phyrexian Mana Stone

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/13/2011 - My draft group was able to play NMS last night thanks to the packs we won at the prerelease. I discovered there that while Etched Monstrosity is still a very solid 5/5 for five, he is nothing more. This was in stark contrast to how he played on the Magic Online beta where the New Phyrexia packs are drafted alongside all the old sets, but most importantly, the Alaran tri-lands and Lorwyn Vivid lands. It got me thinking more about the references that NPH makes to its predecessor, Fifth Dawn, and—more acutely—those it does not.

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Artifact)

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Artifact)
You will see any number of reviews of New Phyrexia in the context of their impact on limited, standard, extended and legacy play. This week, I'm bringing you a new perspective: How does the set stack up in terms of design? Follow along with the official spoiler.

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifact

Alloy Myr is like Palladium Myr, but you get * instead of 2. I would feel that this is unnecessarily derivative if the whole point of this set wasn't to show Phyrexia adapting to all colors. But it is. I will say that it's creepily Fifth Dawn-ish and makes me wonder if they shouldn't have made a Phyrexian version of Sunburst.

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Green)

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Green)
You will see any number of reviews of New Phyrexia in the context of their impact on limited, standard, extended and legacy play. This week, I'm bringing you a new perspective: How does the set stack up in terms of design? Follow along with the official spoiler.

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifact

Beast Within is a game changer. I'm really excited about this card. It's not going to warp any metagames because it's not a great deal at face value, but for the first time in a long time, green has a legitimate answer card. Beast Within deals with any creature or planeswalker, in addition to the standard Creeping Mold targets, and it does it at instant speed. I'm very curious to see how much play this gets and how much legitimacy it grants the deeply limited mono-green archetype.

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Red)

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Red)
You will see any number of reviews of New Phyrexia in the context of their impact on limited, standard, extended and legacy play. This week, I'm bringing you a new perspective: How does the set stack up in terms of design? Follow along with the official spoiler.

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifact

Considering the other cards that have gotten the color-bleed-via-φ treatment, Act of Aggression feels like a no-brainer. I would be complaining that it's way too expensive but making it an instant instead of a sorcery is a pretty big step up in power level for Threaten.

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Black)

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Black)
You will see any number of reviews of New Phyrexia in the context of their impact on limited, standard, extended and legacy play. This week, I'm bringing you a new perspective: How does the set stack up in terms of design? Follow along with the official spoiler.

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifact

I like Blind Zealot. It's a decently costed evasive attacker and it's also conditionless removal. Well, conditionless in the traditional sense for removal—it can target and destroy anything. Obviously, there's a very real condition around getting that effect to trigger: He won't be able to get around any black or artifact creatures.

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Blue)

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (Blue)
You will see any number of reviews of New Phyrexia in the context of their impact on limited, standard, extended and legacy play. This week, I'm bringing you a new perspective: How does the set stack up in terms of design? Follow along with the official spoiler.

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifact

As a player, I can't help but feel like Argent Mutation is overcosted. I don't think it's bad, mind you, a cantrip that let's you trick your opponent into a metalcraft-enabled trap or upgrade your Shatter targets should see play and be fine, but players will wish it was 2cc. My Johnny side envisions stealing some tinny planeswalkers.

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (White)

A Designer's Set Review—New Phyrexia (White)
You will see any number of reviews of New Phyrexia in the context of their impact on limited, standard, extended and legacy play. This week, I'm bringing you a new perspective: How does the set stack up in terms of design? Follow along with the official spoiler.

White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifact

Karn Liberated is big, powerful and unique. Everything required of a mythic card. I'm skeptical how fun it is for you when your opponent pulls off his ultimate, but all the walker ultimates share that trait and it is, arguably, not a bad thing. My concern about Karn is the room for confusion he creates. If you read him carefully, you will discern that sorceries and instants exiled by his first ability do get shuffled back in when the new game starts and there is no attempt to put them on the battlefield, but that's not how it reads the first-time because the word "non-Aura" distracts you from the permanent classification. Yes, it's weird for auras to come into play when there might not be anything for them to enchant, but I'm not sure fudging the functionality of this card to make that clearer was worth it, considering how much less clear the handling of sorceries and instants becomes.

CCDD 041811—Azax-Azog, The Demon Thane

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/18/2011 - I love designing Demons because they almost always deliver a devastating or efficient monster at some kind of twisted cost. Designers love tension, often to our own detriment—it's very easy to go overboard. But what's really fun about designing Demons is the cleverness it takes to make a good drawback. Y'know, the kind that a proper black mage will have little trouble turning into a positive.

Azax-Azog was described on the mothership last week and this art was nearby. While I'm certain that a number of the thanes described were accompanied by unrelated art, I'm of the impression this art was for Azax-Azog. Behold:

CCDD 041411—Creepy Puppet Stare, Glissa's Minions & Giz, Corrupter General

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/14/2011 - I strongly suspect that the latest Mirrodin block is not done waxing nostalgic about the original Mirrodin block. The question is, will they reprint Solemn Simulacrum? No, sigh. Will they infect some good old cards? Infect Bringers, pass. Will they bring back a Mirrodin mechanic? I hope so. Will it be Affinity?

CCDD 041311—Crust-Stalker, Sylvok Chromeslut & Karn is all, "WTF?!"

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/13/2011 - Art spoilers are pure gold for speculators and designers. Yesterday's was no different and I was a bit more pleased with my output from it than the one last week, so I'll be sharing several cards with you today and tomorrow. Today, the "normal" ones...

CCDD 040711—Chancellor of Flesh & Fire

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/7/2011 - Theme is important to Magic as it is to all games, but some players enjoy the story beyond the cards and some don't. I've never read a Magic novel (well, not for entertainment, anyhow) because I'd rather read a fantasy novel created for the explicit purpose of telling the story rather than one contracted as marketing materials. Even so, I still have Vorthosian tendencies and have spent a few daydream cycles wondering about the planeswalker's spark or various cultures and conflicts set forth in the Multiverse. I mention this because

I heart Doug Beyer.

The man's imagination, talent, and (somehow most importantly) passion is nothing short of inspiring. This week he wrote A Planeswalker's Guide to New Phyrexia, Part 1 and it was fascinating. It also spoiled some art for the upcoming set: a speculator's wet dream.

CCDD 033011—Mirran Resistance

Cool Card Design of the Day
3/30/2011 - How might the Mirran Resistance, a tiny group of survivors on an extremely hostile plane continue to fight the good fight?They're going to have to turn the Phyrexians own tools against themselves. Vedalken Carrier lives to be infected. When he finally gives up the ghost, his infection will punish the very monsters that caused it.

CCDD 032911—Voice of Norn

Cool Card Design of the Day
3/29/2011 - Now that we "know" that Phyrexia won the Mirrodin war, we can start speculating about New Phyrexia. It's the third set of a standard three-set block which means that we know a number of things. It will be a small set and it will continue and/or offer variations of all of the major mechanics of the first two blocks. Obviously, there will be infect, but there will also be metalcraft. Living weapon will return, but so will battle cry. There are two ways this is possible. One is that Phyrexian cards will adopt Mirran mechanics as shown in today's CCDD, Voice of Norn.