CCDD 100318—Aravor & Arala

Cool Card Design of the Day
This is an older design with heroic triggers meant to make it dangerous and resilient, but not for free. I imagine it would occasionally spark a back-and-forth of instants, but often just act like a hexproof token-eater.

CCDD 092518—Whitecopse Hermit

Cool Card Design of the Day
Looking through my files, I found this first design, apparently meant to be a high-variance card with a short window of vulnerability.

CCDD 082318—Nightmare's Truth

Cool Card Design of the Day
What makes a horror truly terrifying is not knowing whether you can kill it or not. Or worse, watching it grow stronger when you try to.

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 061417—Aetherwalk

Cool Card Design of the Day
6/14/2017 - I made Aetherwalk with the idea that reducing the cost to activate a creature's ability is under-explored and could be fun for Jenny.

CCDD 021617—Bark Knight

Cool Card Design of the Day
2/15/2017 - A green Jetting Glasskite.

CCDD 071615—Primeval Force & Ancient Force

Cool Card Design of the Day
7/16/2015 - I designed Primeval Force to join the ranks of cards that are reminiscent of Force of Nature, but strictly or generally better. Specifically, I wanted to include an upkeep payment that felt more like an upside than a downside.

CCDD 093014—Icepeak Denizen

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/30/2014 - Worse hexproof. Worse shroud, actually, but that could be changed with the addition of three words.

CCDD 022714—Evade

Cool Card Design of the Day
2/27/2014 - Green creatures are good at getting into fights; they should be good at getting out of them too.

CCDD 100512—Sage Elminster

Cool Card Design of the Day
10/5/2012 - It's been a busy week, but I'd like to post at least one official CCDD, so here's a quicky.

CCDD 011812—Runeward Bear

Cool Card Design of the Day
1/18/2012 - A lot of the value of hexproof—when it's not making non-interactive cards like Invisible Stalker—is the ability to enchant your creature without risking being two-for-oned. Today I'm proposing a very marginal ability that offers much of the same benefit without making your creature entirely immune to your opponent's removal.

Shroud Vs Hexproof: Interactivity

Shroud Vs Hexproof: Downsides
Today I continue the debate between shroud and hexproof. For context, here're part one and part two.

What draws a player to play a game rather than read a book or even watch a movie with friends? Both of those media can be fun and challenging, but they're not interactive. The ability to make choices and see the results of those choices is primary in drawing players into single player games and the effect is multiplied in duels and group games because now you're not just interacting with the game environment, but with other players which can be deeply satisfying.

Shroud Vs Hexproof: Downsides

Shroud Vs Hexproof: Downsides
Today I continue the debate between shroud and hexproof. For context, here's part one.

The only reason we're having this discussion is because they key-worded hexproof. It existed alongside shroud on Sacred Wolf in Magic 2011 non-italic text, but when they key-worded it in 2012 that's where we got the issue we discussed last time. Why keyword it? Why promote it over shroud? Because it's an all-upside version of shroud.

Shroud Vs Hexproof: Mindspace

Shroud Vs Hexproof: Mindspace
This last Friday, Aaron Forsythe tweeted a question which apparently earned the largest response he's ever seen. It's a qood question: Which of shroud and hexproof should be used in Magic going forward? It sounds simple but it's actually a compound question with an answer that depends on more than one factor.