Daily Card Redesign #130: Ajani Vengeant

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:

AJANI! What a beloved dude. I love his vengeance flavor, so I keyed off of that for my redesign.

First ability: I wanted to do Vengeance as one of his abilities for his vengeance flavor, but Gideon Jura already blatantly has that effect as one of his abilities. So, I opted for a variation that was both red and white. I noticed that Chandra, the Firebrand was able to deal 1 damage to creatures as a +1 at four mana. So, taking that into account, I figured 2 damage to tapped creatures as a +1 was fair. But, to be safe, Ajani also now costs five mana.

Second ability: Resurrection is a white thing. Haste is a red thing. Put them together, and you get a potent combination. This plays into the vengeance feel in that something is coming back around a second time but even fiercer than before (haste).

Third ability: I wanted your burn spells and life gain spells to be able to become one or the other. But then I discovered there wasn't enough space for the text of this kind of ability. However, that's when I realized that only being able to turn your life gain spells into damage spells is a flavor win since Ajani's previous card was the monowhite life-gaining one. This "ultimate" ability reflects the mechanical change for this red-white card.

Though, I "read somewhere," that Ajani Goldmane is actually the result of Ajani AFTER he has calmed down with his vengeance thing. But that's all right.

Also, emblems haven't been invented, yet - so that's why there's that "for the rest of the game" clause.

Daily Card Redesign #129: Pus Kami

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:

Over time, this creature gets filled with more and more pus, until eventually it bursts and injects some poor creature with a ton of pus.

Daily Card Redesign #128: Hunting Cheetah

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:

Seeing this field made me want to give this cheetah plainswalk. But, as it turns out, Zodiac Rooster, one of the few plainswalkers in all of Magic: The Gathering, makes an appearance in the same set. So, that option was out.

Haste is in green, but it only rarely appears on green cards. However, this would be a good time for green to get a haste creature, right? Cheetahs are well-known for their speed! Being fast is typically represented in three ways: flash, first strike, and haste. First strike and flash are out because this card appears in the set Portal Three Kingdoms. So, haste it was.

Daily Card Redesign #127: Grapeshot Catapult

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 first thing that was so wrong about this card initially was that this was an artifact creature. There was no indication of it being a magical, living catapult monster, so that had to change. However, I do recognize that there is more functionality from a card that is both a creature and something that taps to deal damage to fliers.

I wanted to have the catapult require tapping of your own creatures to load the next ammo into the catapult, but I decided to go simpler and just have it be implied. I know there's a Goblin in the art, but it's just holding up a dead flier instead of loading the catapult.

I also wanted to have the catapult be "loaded" while tapped and the act of going from tap to untap be the "firing" part. But that created the problem of making this card even more irrelevant if the flying creature has a toughness greater than 1. If it gets damaged during your untap step, then the player will just not block. And if there are multiple creatures, then the opponent will know which one to not block with.

I figured out that what I really wanted was the "untap symbol" found in Shadowmoor. But that couldn't happen in Antiquities. So, I came to the version you see here.

Daily Card Redesign #126: Sinkhole

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:

I decided to keep with modern templating for the rules text since this card seemed like such a timeless type of card that I could see appearing in modern Magic: The Gathering sets.

How do you represent cracked earth besides destroying land? By making you sacrifice it! It's a very black thing to do. And it makes sense flavorfully because you're wrecking up your own resource to open up a path to hell for the poor soul that will be damned to eternity Down Below.

I'm not sure on the mana cost for this type of card. A development concern to be sure, but I still wonder. And I'm willing to tweak the sorcery type into an instant to attain a certain mana cost.

Daily Card Redesign #125: Goblin Firestarter

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:

I wanted this Goblin to be able to destroy a land upon entering the battlefield, but Ogre Arsonist already does that in the same set. So, I had to stick to damage. 

It looks like this guy is sneaking up on a tent and burning it up while someone inside is sleeping. Thus the reason why it damages tapped creatures (they're exhausted or otherwise distracted and not having the vigilance to notice that a Goblin is setting their encampment before it's too late and they get burned).