Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Daily Card Redesign #93: Triumph of Ferocity

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. 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.


Redesign:


The art of Triumph of Ferocity is one that sparked controversy, debate, and an eventual apology from Wizards of the Coast for being an image that either depicts or triggers survivors of sexual assault.

When redesigning the card, I tried to stray away from the power aspect, so that it doesn't feel like Liliana is helpless compared to Garruk. I tied the name to what Garruk did in the lore after Liliana cursed him: he went to find her to try to undo the curse. The art here depicts him finally tracking her down. The name isn't talking about him being more powerful (because assaulting women is related to being "a power thing") or about any physical harm at all. The name talks about the pursuit. However, the effect itself pins a creature and stops it from getting away; but, hopefully, it's at least an improvement.

Provoke untaps creatures and forces them to block anything. This spell, on the other hand, untaps a creature and stops it from making itself unavailable to block again by using any activated abilities it might have (like with Prodigal Pyromancer using its activated ability and becoming tapped again) as well as force it to block a specific creature of yours. It's better-costed than a Murder, but it requires you to have a creature that is larger than the other creature you're tracking down in order for it to be beneficial.

2 comments:

  1. I appreciate your thoughtful sensitivity in redesigning this card.

    I immediately thought Track Down was cool, but then I remembered Fight exists and am left feeling this is a long way to go when a shortcut for the effect is in vogue.

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    Replies
    1. As you and Mike on Twitter pointed out, it looks like I could have done a lot better with redesign. Even though "it's nice that I'm sensitive." ;)

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