Why Wouldn't You Design That? Volume 1, part 1

Welcome all!

Here's the first part in what I hope will be a recurring series, what I am calling "Why Wouldn't You Design That?", wherein I throw out what I think were some unfortunately missed tropes that the current block could have hit on.
DESIGN

Disclaimer: This article contains custom card designs. If you are a Wizards of the Coast employee you have my full permission to use any designs or ideas within this article without my explicit written consent or prior knowledge, or without giving me any sort of credit. I love this game and I want to help it in any way I can.


Let's get started!

The 13 theme. I think this takes it to the most logical extreme. Let's get it!

One of the greatest flaws of Innistrad is that it had a particularly rich catalog of characters that were built up through all of the style guides, and there is only so much room for legendary creatures in each set. Although, creative always builds up a surplus of story material so they have more examples to draw potential designs from, so this could merely be speaking highly of Innistrad's awesome flavor more than a R&D dropping the ball.

More green miracles. Seriously. I love the two that we have, but every other color got INSANE cards, and all green gets is pump spells. I feel betrayed. ):

Not much to say here. Obvious extensions of several recurring themes.

Push the loner theme in constructed. Many of the loner cards are super interesting, but most of them don't seem quite good enough for constructed, and while I doubt it had what it takes to become top tier, I feel like the theme had an appalling lack of constructed viable edge that many other themes from sets past have had. Plus, come on, look at that card, that's an awesome design and you know it!

There's more to come, but let me know what you think!!!

The Devil's Work.

Disclaimer: This article contains custom card designs. If you are a Wizards of the Coast employee you have my full permission to use any designs or ideas within this article without my explicit written consent or prior knowledge, or without giving me any sort of credit. I love this game and I want to help it in any way I can.

So Dark Ascension has come and brought a whole bunch of new goodies to Magic. Among them were a bunch of new devils in red, following suite from Innistrad.

And you know what?

I love them.

I don't know what it is about them, but I love those horrid little monsters. Maybe it's because they represent all of the 'mean' aspects of red, without having to worry about representing a sentient race like goblins. Maybe it's because it lets red have a flip side to black's demons and imps. Maybe it's because they look like cute little monkies that are on fire and they hate you.
Whatever it is, devils have rapidly become one of my favorite creature types. Second, possibly, only to trolls.

Here's a bunch of them I designed to reflect my newfound obsession!

2 power creatures for one mana. Let's get it! I consider this the logical conclusion to what Bloodcrazed Goblin was trying to accomplish.

Devils seem like they would favor chaotic experiences. A random Swerve effect seems fairly chaotic to me.

I designed this as the inverse to Kor Firewalker, which I loathe with a passion. Mostly because it's so darn hard for red decks to effectively deal with.

I think this makes an interesting counterpoint to Kiln Fiend. Kiln Fiend is better off in more aggressive strategies since it works better with cheap spells. But this guy does more work in games that might last longer when you're casting more expensive things like Into the Maw of Hell or Blood Feud.

Wizards tends to shy away from really cheap effects that can convert creatures into another valuable resource. The last creature-to-mana card that I can recall was the 5-drop Thermopod. I want to see how aggressively I can push this sort of resource engine.

I'm genuinely surpised this hasn't happened yet. The Goblin War Drum effect is one of red's most interesting form of evasion (plus one of the few that's almost entirely based in red), and it works so well with an ability that warps combat in your favor like double strike.

I think red needs more opportunities to do 'clever' things.

Magic needs more Conquering Masticores!

A Rats of Rath for the new age!

The flavor here works so ridiculously well, I'm surprised this wasn't a thing before.

Let me know what you think!