CCDD 032020 - Friendly Chatterbox

There's a well-known design trap where adding "bad" abilities to an otherwise fine card can make it read a lot worse-- like the difference between Gutter Skulk and Tavern Swindler. Today's card is a little bit that way at first glance, but I'm hopeful that the ability is actually more relevant than it seems.

CCDD 022220 - Mental Block

Holding up mana for Cancel (and other counterspells) during an opponent's turn is stressful. You more or less commit to countering whatever they cast, and hope they don't figure out your plan. So a counterspell enchantment that you can cast in advance and use on demand is appealing. In fact it's too appealing. It shuts down interaction and creates frustrating play patterns-- at least, I assume that's we've never seen one (unless you count Common Courtesy). But maybe there's a similar effect that could work.

Big Deck Energy

a guest post by Wobbles

A recent Twitter conversation made me realize that a popular casual format played by my friends may not be widely known. It certainly wasn't when I went to look for an article to describe it! So let me let you all in on a great format known as 

Big Deck Magic

CCDD 010517—Eager Healer

Cool Card Design of the Day
1/5/2017 - In a duel, Eager Healer is a symmetrical effect. In multiplayer, it's political capital. In Two-Headed Giant, it's teamwork.

CCDD 010317—Seedcaster

Cool Card Design of the Day
1/3/2017 - I love the way that Eager Construct smooths the game for everyone. The game needs smoothing, and making cards that smooth for everyone but are still worth playing (sometimes) helps make smoothing happen more. That said, fully symmetrical effects can feel a little bad when they help your opponent more than you; So can we make a card that can smooth for everyone that needs it, but clearly benefits its caster most?

Weekend Art Challenge Review 022616—Conspiracy 2.0

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Welcome back, artisans to the review of this weekend's challenge. My name’s Zeno Rage a.k.a Walter Christy, and this week I asked everyone to do a little bit of theorizing on what’s going to be in the recently announced Conspiracy: Reign of Brago.

What’s that? Brago’s dead! Again! Sorry, my bad. I’ll just fix that.

Conspiracy: The Reign of Brago The Empty Throne.

What now! Someone took the throne? Good Urza, why can’t Wizards make up their minds? I swear, this is the last time I’ll change it.

Conspiracy: The Reign of Brago The Empty Throne Take the Crown.

With all of that confusion settled, let’s go over some of the things I’m looking for so we can get right into the cards. Anything that affects the draft, or is affected by being drafted, is one way to go. This could include conspiracies and the typical cogwork constructs. Second thing: cards that interact well in multiplayer. This could be done through the use of the mechanics from the original Conspiracy (Will of the council, Dethrone, Parley), or you could’ve come up with something original. Finally, I’ll be looking to see if the card is iterating on what the first set had done and expanding and exploring on those themes and ideas.

One last thing to take note of: all of the draft matters cards—much like lands, foils, rares, and double faced cards from Innistrad—have their own slot in the booster pack. This means that you won’t have multiple of them in a pact, and players will just have an extra (super fun and exciting) choice to choose from. Now, let’s get right into it!

Weekend Art Challenge 022616—Conspiracy 2.0

Weekend Art Challenge
Hello, artisans. My name is Zeno Rage, A.K.A. Walter Christy, and this weekend I’ll be hosting the challenge. And what is the challenge, you may ask? This week Wizards announced the sequel to a fan favorite set: Eternal Masters Conspiracy!

While we may not know what the final name will be, we do know that it will build off of what the first set had: Draft matters cards and multiplayer mechanics. I’d like to see everyone explore some more of these themes. A couple of weeks ago there was another, more focused multiplayer challenge that you can look to for some inspiration on the multiplayer part. As for the draft matters part, well, that's what your creativity and imagination is for. Lets get to the art!

Weekend Art Challenge Review 021216—multiplayer mechanics

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Hello all. Guest goblin inspector Anastase here. It has been a busy weekend for Goblin Artisans, and it is time to inspect your craftsmanship. This is the challenge we are reviewing.

A few words on the challenge first:

Actually fulfilling all the requirements was very hard. A mechanic that works well both in duels and multiplayer usually has to scale upwards.

Making it general enough for the cards to be usable by all colors or a cycle of 5 color combinations requires to find a situation or trigger that all colors will care about.

Doing that while keeping the mechanic fun adds a layer of complexity on its own, since "fun" is a very broad term.

A few ways that have been proven to work are the will of the council, offering and dethrone cards, even though dethrone stayed in Grixis.

This challenge was meant as a way to make people think about the intersection of duels and multiplayer, about what is important to have to make a multi-player game tick. I secretly added a focus on combat (which is supposed to make MtG end and its major place of interaction) by asking to design one mechanic about that. The main phase restriction was more open-ended, but I had hoped for some way to make sorcery speed effects slightly more interactive.

The images were not restrictive this time, since you could suggest your own images if you had a mechanic that did not fit them.

I will present some more thoughts on this challenge and the nature of challenges in the conclusion of this article, but for now let us see some excellent cards!

Weekend Art Challenge 021216—multiplayer mechanics

Weekend Art Challenge
Hello Artisans, Anastase here, with yet another WAC. This time we are diving into politics. Will of the Council was an interesting idea during Conspiracy and that set had enough success to warrant an expansion.

CCDD 122815—Springwind Invoker

Cool Card Design of the Day
12/28/2015 - Inspired by surge's multiplayer-friendly-ness:

CCDD 010815—Phyrexian Grappler

Cool Card Design of the Day
1/8/2015 - Phyrexian Grappler doesn't have to be an artifact, or green, necessarily, but something about this effect just felt Phyrexian to me and this is how it came out.

Weekend Art Challenge Review 101714—Frank Hong

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

Weekend Art Challenge 101714—Frank Hong

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 090314—Pouncing Almedon

Cool Card Design of the Day
9/3/2014 - In a duel, this card simply must attack each turn. In multiplayer, it serves a similar goal as dethrone, though as a drawback rather than a bonus. While the opponent with the most life isn't always the biggest threat at the table, this can backfire just as easily, forcing you to pick on a player who is mana-screwed. Pouncing Almedon also doesn't give you any particular reason to play it in multiplayer, but printing it in a multiplayer product would be sufficient.