CCDD 031420 - Fearless Challenger

As seen on cards like Tromokratis and Loyal Pegasus, blocking restrictions are a surprisingly powerful part of Magic's templating toolbox. You can use them to express almost any condition about the allocation of blockers (which has an exponential number of possibilities) or about the game state more generally. Historically Magic design hasn't gone very deep into this territory. Here's an example of a simple-ish, interesting application.

CCDD 030320 - Great Wall

This design was inspired by Star Realms, which has a category of "Base" cards (think "planeswalkers without loyalty abilities") that have to be destroyed before you can be attacked. It's as if a planeswalker had the static ability "creatures can't attack you." But because of how combat works in Star Realms it's actually more than that-- damage to a base heals at end of turn. The easiest way to implement that in Magic was to make it a creature, even though it often acts more like an enchantment (Moat) or a planeswalker (Gideon Jura).

CCDD 061818—GDS3 Slick

Cool Card Design of the Day
For the mechanic challenge in GDS3, I built and tested a number of mechanics. Slick was the last of my top choices. Ryan was lamenting hexproof on Twitter today, so it's time to share this one.

CCDD 052814—Dread Surprise

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/28/2014 - You could argue that Nemesis Trap is precedent for this card being black, and the art helps, but looking at this design three years later, I can't help but think it has no business in black. Green, maybe. White, surely, with new flavor.

CCDD 112013—Ethereal Interceptor

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/20/2013 - "This creature can block creatures as if they had no abilities" is more than a little confusing. Here's a simpler way:

CCDD 040512—Against All Odds

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/5/2012 - What would it take to make Valor Made Real Limited playable? I'd say Against All Odds is about the minimum to convince decent players to run this, probably as their 23rd card.

Take a look.

CCDD 031411—Backstab

Cool Card Design of the Day
3/14/2011 - When I designed the Threaten variant, Manifest Betrayal, I had to think of other ways temporary stealing effects could work and that led me to Backstab. What if you got your opponent's creature to betray his own team in a sneakier way? What if you could cast your Threaten variant at instant speed, after blockers were already declared?