CCDD 20210720 - Promising Swindler and Bounty Bolt

Starting to think about which mechanics would be useful to include as a returning mechanic for my Heist Movie set. Renown seems like it might be a good place to start - thieves and charlatans can gain a bit of notoriety. The biggest strike against it is that, to play in the trope space, being recognizable in the heist world is a bit of double edged sword, as you have people paying attention to you when you need to be inconspicuous. Translating that into mechanics means finding ways to punish renown, which is not a great recipe for a mechanic like that.

CCDD 090320 - Lightning Berserker

It always bothered me a little that there wasn't much point in blocking Ball Lightning. Absorbing a few points of damage isn't normally worth losing an X/2 or X/3 creature, so the Lightning was basically just a burn spell that could be "countered" by first strike or instant-speed removal. Eventually I decided to make a version that didn't have that problem.

CCDD 021920 - Playing With Fire

Rituals (spells that generate more mana than they cost) are tricky to design. Aggressive decks getting to trade cards for tempo is a cool idea, but almost any ritual that's good at that is even better at powering broken strategies. (Storm decks are the best-known example.) On the other side of the power scale, weak or restricted ritual effects aren't consistently good enough to be worth a card in most decks. If only we could print a ritual effect that didn't take up an entire card...

CCDD 041118—Jaya's Immolating Inferno

Cool Card Design of the Day
4/11/2018 - Have you seen Jaya's Immolating Inferno from the Dominaria spoilers? Let's discuss legendary sorceries.

CCDD 070517—Draw Blood

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/5/2017 - Putting two half-card effects together to reach the value of a full card, using flavor as the glue.

CCDD 062817—Voodoo Bonfire

Cool Card Design of the Day
6/28/2017 - Here's a cheaper, more damaging Lava Axe, thanks to a delayed effect, and the chance for your opponent to prevent some of the damage.

CCDD 102716—Hand Axe

Cool Card Design of the Day
10/27/2016 - Lava Axe meets Fall of the Hammer.

CCDD 062016—Goblin Birthday Party

Cool Card Design of the Day
6/20/2016 - A tribal card.

CCDD 052416—Ki Strike

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/24/2015 - Thematic and aesthetic synergy will help us continue to make new burn spells for a long time.

CCDD 021116—As Many Arrows as it Takes

Cool Card Design of the Day
2/11/2016 - I wanted to make a scalable bolt: one that could deal 1 damage for one mana, 2 for two, or 3 for three.

CCDD 090815—Dragonflame

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/8/2015 - I hope to have the WAC Review tomorrow. Today's card could definitely only be printed with a silver border, and even then it's questionable. Imagine that you're losing a game and hoping for a miracle. Or that you're going to lose this turn and peel the top card of your deck out of turn to indicate your concession.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 082815—Jungshan

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Design a card for this art that includes the words "deals damage to." If your card is red, try to find a new angle on burn. If your card isn't, be sure to justify that fact.

Weekend Art Challenge 082815—Jungshan

Weekend Art Challenge
Greetings, artisans! Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every  submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though only the version rendered will be included in the review, if someone volunteers to render the cards.

CCDD 050515—Shocking Experiment / Enlightening Result

Cool Card Design of the Day
5/5/2015 - Let's explore non-permanent double-faced cards a while. The Sol Forge mechanic seems like a promising place to start: The first time you play a card, you 'learn from it' so that the next time you play it, it's stronger.

CCDD 120314—Searing Armory

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/3/2014 - Inspired by Czynski's Flame Aurora, Searing Armory looks for more ways to remove the card disadvantage of Crushing Pain. Turns out, affecting multiple creatures does the trick nicely.

CCDD 120214—Volcanic Musing

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/2/2014 - Explosive Revelation meets Act on Impulse. Inspired by Reuben's Flare of Inspiration.

Sometimes you get one spell and sometimes you get a land as well. My favorite thing is that the less damage the revealed spell causes, the more likely you are to afford to cast it.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 112814—MaliciaRoseNoire

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Here's the challenge we're reviewing today.

CCDD 112514—Kemral's Vengeance

Cool Card Design of the Day
11/25/2014 - It's been a while since I've designed a card from the art down, but my repository is waning and I found this piece and had to do something with it. I imagine it supports a story moment in which a red character named Kemral repays a betrayal from a black-aligned ally, but that's all fluff.

CCDD 100114—Nail in the Coffin

Cool Card Design of the Day
10/1/2014 - I kinda feel like I've done this card before, but I can't find it. The concept is decent: If you can finish off a creature with 1 damage, it doesn't cost you a card. But…

CCDD 091714—Paternity Test

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/17/2014 - I've been messing with the punisher mechanic recently. Not because I think it's a deep well of Magic design, it's just what keeps bubbling to the surface. This is easily my favorite design in that vein.