Daily Card Redesign #172: Animate Artifact

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

The art shows a focus on a metal sword - so I knew I had to keep this card's effect related to artifacts when I redesigned it. Next step was to take a look at what kind of effects already exist in Alpha. I didn't see any artifact tutors in it. Thus, I had my direction - do an artifact tutor variation.

Alpha is perfect for simplified variations of staple effects, whenever they haven't already been done. What's the most simple version of an artifact tutor? Fabricate. What's the second-most simplest version of an artifact tutor? An instant artifact tutor - which doesn't exist. 

Daily Card Redesign #171: Battle Rampart

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

Hah! I redesigned my card without looking at what the power, toughness, and mana cost was. I then see I designed exactly the same stats and cost. Seems appropriate! It's a wall on wheels, so it's bound to deal at least minimal damage. And because it's a mobile wall, it's not really as high-toughness as the  ground-bound walls.

Anyway, the idea here is that whenever this thing charges in for an attack, your other creatures are behind it. In order for anything to interact with your other creatures, they must first deal with that wall the rest of your creatures are hiding behind.

Besides this being an offensive Wall of all things making this red - red normally can cause creatures to not be able to block. This kind of card feels like an extension of that idea. Encourages an aggressive strategy of attacking, and it does this by dealing with potential blockers.

Daily Card Redesign #170: Bloodthorn Taunter

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

I'm at Grand Prix Las Vegas, so rapid fire card design with little amount of description!

I figure that a common could do with this red ability that is usually at uncommon by having it be conditional. Just look at the Smelt-Ward Gatekeepers! The flavor here is that the beast it's taunting follows it around temporarily, and doesn't realize it is crashing into the direction of its original owner.

Daily Card Redesign #169: Pretender's Claim

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

Oof. I would have given this more time to develop into something that actually gave choices to be made by a player to feel more like what the art is implying about what's going on mechanically, but I've run out of time.

So, the idea for this incarnation is that the guy that is standing with the guards is the opponent, pleading to spare his troops' lives in exchange for a payment to the king/lord-like person sitting in the throne in the background (that's you).

Daily Card Redesign #168: Wild Ricochet

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

Daily Card Redesign #167: Pyromancer's Swath

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

Go, go Flame Javelin.

So, I needed to redesign this with an effect that feels like it's from the future. I consider this effect pretty radical enough that it does achieve this goal.

I also feel like the dedication toward burn matches the art well. The mage is engulfed in flames! ...It was important to me that this was a "Once you go burn, you don't go back." kind of thing, so an enchantment wasn't permanent enough (even though it does become harder to destroy it - you just play a creature or other permanent card that can rid of enchantments).

I feel like this "replace all text with this text" can be stretched out for a whole cycle. If we use the same names, then it'd be "Aeromastery," "Hydromastery," "Necromastery," and "Geomastery." ...Not that the names are super stellar, but it's more aid toward an illustration of my idea of this kind of effect existing on more than one card.

Daily Card Redesign #166: Quirion Elves

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

I'm not sure how important this card was to multicolored play in Mirage (I know it was reprinted later where its multicolored-faceted ability was more valuable), so I decided to not be constricted by it - besides, Rampant Growth exists within the same set at common.

I decided to switch this up to one of those creatures that fetches lands from the library to put into your hand, like Borderland Ranger. The above redesign you see hasn't been done before. It's similar to Sylvan Ranger. Just take away the freedom to search for any basic land and replace it with an extra point of toughness, and you get a new card - and one that makes sense given that the art depicts more than one Elf (more than one toughness).

Also, the art matches the whole "looking for new lands" thing that this card does mechanically.

Daily Card Redesign #165: Fertile Ground

Daily Card Redesign is a daily Magic: The Gathering design exercise where I randomly choose a card for the scenario of it being scrapped late during its own set's development. I design a replacement card that uses the same art, is the same color(s), is the same rarity, and has a name that, alphabetically, keeps it within the same collector number for the set.

ORIGINAL:

REDESIGN:

The art has an unusual focus on these flying insects. They're obtaining the nectar / whatever-that-this. This means they're interacting with the land. So, I saw it fit to still be a land Aura card. It definitely couldn't be a flying green creature card since, well, that's not what is supposed to do. 

What green does do is hate on flying creatures. And within its repertoire of methods of dealing with creatures is having a Fog effect. So, mechanically and flavorfully, having a flying creature be distracted by the more fertile lands of this enchanted land would make sense.

One last thing to make this make sense - why does this fertile land only affect flying creatures? Sure, the art depicts flying creatures, but what IS it about the depiction that makes it so that these insects are going bananas? ...Oh, it's the flower-y type stuff. Stuff that only these creatures go bonkers for. Flowers! That's a simple, elegant, grok-able thing.

So, a flowered place means it has... well, flowers. Smooth.