Friday, February 11, 2011

CCDD 021111—Savage Philosopher

Classic Cool Card Design of the Day
What follows is a CCDD that was created before the feature transitioned from the Wizards Wiki to Goblin Artisans. It has been formatted to fit your screen.

2/11/2011 - I'm pretty sure there's a common phrase that makes a better name for this card, but it's mentally blocked to me at the moment.

This guy is an exploration of the Thieving Magpie ability in red. I'm not saying it's definitely right at home here, but I am saying it's very much worth exploring. To my eye, it makes more sense in red than blue flavor-wise and I doubt anyone will argue that a red mage would love to be drawing cards while dealing damage.

This ability's flavor in blue is either one of theft or spying. The theft flavor is very weak because you never actually take anything from your opponent—you just gain a card from your own deck—and because cards-in-hand is a pretty abstract thing to be stealing. Dimir Cutpurse solves the first problem and freaky cards that might actually be stealing thoughts or dreams like Ophidian solve the latter, but never the twain have met. Spying is stronger flavor but has its own problems: Why are you seeing a card from your deck and not your opponent's? Why do you have to physically damage your opponent to spy on them?

This ability's flavor in red becomes one of warlust and battle inspiration. Red guys love dealing damage and their passion and instinct tie in well with the idea of inspiration or ferver. "Graa, did you see how I just hammered that zombie?! So fun! Can you do better, blood-brother?" Red is entitled to a number of triggers on dealing damage or combat damage and drawing a card seems like one of the first options you'd want to explore. Perhaps 'looting' proves more appropriate in the long run.

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