Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being killed late during its own set's development, and I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color, is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.
So. Another legendary creature. That means research into the character once again! Just who is this Kamigawa goblin dude? I mean, besides him being a oopular and strong, playable card *reads*
Dude. If it weren't for having this randomly chosen for me to do today's exercise, I wouldn't have learned about the fantastic tale of Kiki-Jiki. What a fantastic character! So this is a goblin - or, akki, as they are called in Kamigawa - that stumbled his way into accidentally meeting up with a dragon who had a quest for him. Kiki-Jiki then was flown all the way up to where the moonfolk are and stole a pearl for the dragon and then discovered he had the ability to make reflections of himself! An unassuming akki with simple desires doing fantastic things. Also, one of his skills is throwing rocks.
I know very little else about his character, but there are multiple things to go off of. First, the reflection part. In the story I read, he made a reflection of himself. But he doesn't do that in the card. He may or may not have the ability to make reflections of others, but he at least isn't able to do what he could do in the story - copy himself. There are a couple other ways I thought of how to reflect (hah!) this ability of his.
First thing I thought of was him having the ability to search for all other copies of the Kiki-Jiki card and put them onto the battlefield and have the "legend rule" not apply to them. This would make for up to four Kiki-Jikis! AND this would be different from the current ability, where tokens are made.
But the Brothers Yamazaki already exist within the same set, Champions of Kamigawa. We can't have TWO different cards that ignore the "legend rule" for themselves (I consider Mirror Gallery as doing something different from Brothers Yamazaki).
So, I can't do this. And I refuse to re-do tokens. So what else did Kiki-Jiki do?
Well, he breaks mirrors. I so want him to be able to do this (and I'm using the wording/terms used at the time):
"When Kiki-Jiki Mirror-Breaker comes into play, destroy each artifact with 'Mirror' in its name."
Of course, this wouldn't be the only effect on the card. Only being able to destroy mirrors is lame since it rarely comes up. And it doesn't have to be upon when he enters the battlefield. Also, I pointed out "artifacts" in that effect instead of permanents since there are non-mirror cards that have "Mirror" in its name. Meloku the Clouded Mirror for example.
Besides the effect of destroying mirrors not coming into play most of the time, there's also a problem with calling out specific words in the names of cards. This only appears on Un- cards. I believe this is because of the multiple languages that Magic: The Gathering exists in. Un- sets don't have this problem - they're only in English. Also, it can be confusing whether a word appears in the name of a card. For example, does the card Mirrorworks count as a card that contains the word "Mirror" in its name?
So, we're not going to destroy artifacts with "Mirror" in their name. ...what ELSE did Kiki-Jiki have going for him? Well, he found a dragon. And he rode on its back. ...Good enough for me!
He didn't MEAN to find the dragon. He was just really hungry and one thing led to another. He just happened to find that ryu who requested his help to steal a pearl. So, the akki is lucky. Luck. And the most common tools for chance in Magic: The Gathering is the flipping of a coin or the revealing/drawing of card from a library. Let's try designing a card with flipping a coin in it first.
Since Kiki-Jiki was venturing forth to forage for food and then happened to find the dragon, I'm going to associate him attacking with this act of his. And upon him attacking is when we flip a coin to see if he stumbled upon a dragon that helps him fly up to the moonfolk-y place.
"Whenever CARDNAME attacks, if it doesn't have a luck counter on it, flip a coin. If heads, put a luck counter on CARDNAME and put a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying and 'Creatures you control named CARDNAME have flying.' into play tapped and attacking."
That's actually kind of messy, but it prevents players from being able to keep producing Dragons and ride off of other Dragons. ...However, perhaps that would be most excellent for making this card a more appealing card! I mean, the original Kiki-Jiki couldn't make reflections of himself, so there's already liberties being taken! Let's do the same here, for the sake of more fun gameplay.
Let's try that again:
"CARDNAME has flying as long as you control a Dragon.
Whenever CARDNAME attacks, if you don't control a Dragon, flip a coin. If heads, put a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying into play tapped and attacking."
There. Now, in card form!
I know very little else about his character, but there are multiple things to go off of. First, the reflection part. In the story I read, he made a reflection of himself. But he doesn't do that in the card. He may or may not have the ability to make reflections of others, but he at least isn't able to do what he could do in the story - copy himself. There are a couple other ways I thought of how to reflect (hah!) this ability of his.
First thing I thought of was him having the ability to search for all other copies of the Kiki-Jiki card and put them onto the battlefield and have the "legend rule" not apply to them. This would make for up to four Kiki-Jikis! AND this would be different from the current ability, where tokens are made.
But the Brothers Yamazaki already exist within the same set, Champions of Kamigawa. We can't have TWO different cards that ignore the "legend rule" for themselves (I consider Mirror Gallery as doing something different from Brothers Yamazaki).
So, I can't do this. And I refuse to re-do tokens. So what else did Kiki-Jiki do?
Well, he breaks mirrors. I so want him to be able to do this (and I'm using the wording/terms used at the time):
"When Kiki-Jiki Mirror-Breaker comes into play, destroy each artifact with 'Mirror' in its name."
Of course, this wouldn't be the only effect on the card. Only being able to destroy mirrors is lame since it rarely comes up. And it doesn't have to be upon when he enters the battlefield. Also, I pointed out "artifacts" in that effect instead of permanents since there are non-mirror cards that have "Mirror" in its name. Meloku the Clouded Mirror for example.
Besides the effect of destroying mirrors not coming into play most of the time, there's also a problem with calling out specific words in the names of cards. This only appears on Un- cards. I believe this is because of the multiple languages that Magic: The Gathering exists in. Un- sets don't have this problem - they're only in English. Also, it can be confusing whether a word appears in the name of a card. For example, does the card Mirrorworks count as a card that contains the word "Mirror" in its name?
So, we're not going to destroy artifacts with "Mirror" in their name. ...what ELSE did Kiki-Jiki have going for him? Well, he found a dragon. And he rode on its back. ...Good enough for me!
He didn't MEAN to find the dragon. He was just really hungry and one thing led to another. He just happened to find that ryu who requested his help to steal a pearl. So, the akki is lucky. Luck. And the most common tools for chance in Magic: The Gathering is the flipping of a coin or the revealing/drawing of card from a library. Let's try designing a card with flipping a coin in it first.
Since Kiki-Jiki was venturing forth to forage for food and then happened to find the dragon, I'm going to associate him attacking with this act of his. And upon him attacking is when we flip a coin to see if he stumbled upon a dragon that helps him fly up to the moonfolk-y place.
"Whenever CARDNAME attacks, if it doesn't have a luck counter on it, flip a coin. If heads, put a luck counter on CARDNAME and put a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying and 'Creatures you control named CARDNAME have flying.' into play tapped and attacking."
That's actually kind of messy, but it prevents players from being able to keep producing Dragons and ride off of other Dragons. ...However, perhaps that would be most excellent for making this card a more appealing card! I mean, the original Kiki-Jiki couldn't make reflections of himself, so there's already liberties being taken! Let's do the same here, for the sake of more fun gameplay.
Let's try that again:
"CARDNAME has flying as long as you control a Dragon.
Whenever CARDNAME attacks, if you don't control a Dragon, flip a coin. If heads, put a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying into play tapped and attacking."
There. Now, in card form!
You know what? The art for this version of Kiki-Jiki makes more sense than the original Kiki-Jiki did.
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