#Moxtober 24: Chop

During the month of October is #Inktober! Each day has a single-word prompt, but instead of inking something, I design a Magic: The Gathering mechanic to fit the word. This is called #Moxtober.

(#Moxtober was previously named #Meltober, named after "Mel", the more mechanically-inclined counterpart to "Vorthos" of the aesthetic profile spectrum.)


Day 01: "poisonous"
Day 02: "tranquil"
Day 03: "roasted"
Day 04: "spell"
Day 05: "chicken"
Day 06: "drooling"
Day 07: "exhausted"
Day 08: "star"
Day 09: "precious"
Day 10: "flowing"
Day 11: "cruel"
Day 12: "whale"
Day 13: "guarded"
Day 14: "clock"
Day 15: "weak"
Day 16: "angular"
Day 17: "swollen"
Day 18: "bottle"
Day 19: "scorched"
Day 20: "breakable"
Day 21: "drain"
Day 22: "expensive"
Day 23: "muddy"

Today's prompt is: "chop"

"Chop" made me think of someone doing a karate chop. And, like in Pokemon with monsters like Machop, being likely to do a "critical hit", where you're striking a weak point of the opposition. Thus, "critical strike."

Red is the obvious color for flipping in general, but since the flip relates to combat and abilities that white has, this card is showing how the critical strike flavor can be placed in white's color pie.

So, we've had first strike, double strike, triple strike, and last strike. All of them are static and not dynamic. Critical strike introduces dynamic strike where you're not sure whether the creature is going to deal a certain "strike".

This is "after blockers are declared" instead of "when this attacks" both for strategical reasons and for flavor reasons. A "critical strike" should vary from subject to subject, when one applies hits to the correct critical point of a dragon vs. a human fighter, etc. Strategically, this is so that it's still an element of uncertainty for the defending player when choosing to block.

If this was upon attacking, the uncertainty onus is only placed upon the attacker, which isn't as fair.