Card of the Day - Brood Hydra

Now that Alara Reborn is finally (pre)released, I don't feel the need to show only multicolor cards any more (or to color critique every card I show). This is the last one. Starting tomorrow, there'll be a new theme week. It will be just like Land Week except without any land.




Power/toughness tied to number of something - All colors. Frequently tied to that something's main color. For hydras, that's red (although green is secondary).
Token generation - All colors. Most common in green, then white, then black and red (about even), then blue.
Card drawing - Blue, then green.
Sacrificing things to draw cards - All colors, but particularly green/blue/black.

Brood Hydra should probably just be green, but blue is excusable.

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Color Critique - Thraximundar

All right. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. The moment in which I complain about cards. Yeah! I've invited my pal Thraximundar along for the occasion.




Haste - Red. Secondary in green. Rarely black.
Making your opponent(s) sacrifice things - Black. Sometimes red.
Getting bigger when creatures die - Red, black, green.

Nothing about Thraximundar makes him blue. Not even his creature types. He should be black/red. If you absolutely need a third color for him, it should be green.

Thraximundar bugs me more than poorly-colored cards usually do. This is because he is so obviously a Jund card. Making your opponent sacrifice creatures is more of a Grixis ability, true, but caring about when anybody sacrifices creatures is so Jund it hurts (NOTA BENE: All Jund things hurt. It's one of their identifying features).

This is how Thraximundar should have looked:




Oh, and I also changed his creature type. A 6/6 (or bigger) creature that charges headlong into combat has no business calling itself an assassin. His story is that he's Malfegor's head general or some such nonsense. That being so, he should really be a warrior or soldier or something. I made him a rogue because if he was a warrior his creature type text would be too close to his set symbol and it would look bad.

Speaking of the set symbol...




That's how ya make it. Use the points tool to get the hand + thumb the way you want it then do the same for a finger (you'll need to create a new rectangle first). Once you have the first finger done, you can use the duplicator to get three more the same shape and facing the same direction. Just resize them and you're golden.

Card of the Day - Spitewind Efreet

Thought I'd try my hand at one of these fancy new multicolor/hybrid combinations. The deal with these is that they should work as a multicolor card of either of the two possible color combinations. This means that Spitewind Efreet should be printable as either a white/blue card or a blue/black card.

Flying - Blue then white then black. Red for dragons and phoenixes and such like. Almost never green.
Untap - Blue. Sometimes green.
Remove from combat - Red and white.
Untap and remove from combat - White.

All right. The white/blue version of this card is obvious. But what reason could it have for being black?

Regeneration (The next time this creature would be destroyed this turn, it isn't. Instead tap it, remove all damage from it, and remove it from combat) - Black and green.

The efreet's ability functions as a sort of pseudo-regeneration. This allows it to be black.

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Card of the Day - Mysticism's End

Artifact destruction - Red and green
Enchantment destruction - Green and white
Mass artifact destruction - Red and white. Rarely green.
Mass enchantment destruction - White. Rarely green.

Mysticism's End should be white. It can get by without red and green, but it's probably better to include at least one of them. Including both is fine.

Originally I had this card in Bant, not Naya. Instead of destroying all artifacts and enchantments, it worked as a kind of mass Deglamer. I kept fiddling with it, trying to find ways to make it fit all colors. Eventually I just ran it through the color critique shown above and realized that I had it all wrong. I was trying to force a Purify into a color it didn't belong in.

Those poor Esperites.

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Card of the Day - Vesuvan Leech

Flash - Green or blue
Self-sacrifice - Red or black. Blue when it involves attacking or blocking.
Self-duplication - Green or blue.

The leech is solidly green/blue. It could even be a hybrid.

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Card of the Day - Spirit of Nature

EDIT: Aaaaah fuck. This card was originally called Force of Nature. Unfortunately, as Nameless One pointed out in the comments, this name is taken. I should probably check that sort of thing myself. This is pretty disappointing. I was really pleased with the name and I made all sorts allusions to the Scout from Team Fortress 2 (who is also a force of nature). This new name is a placeholder, and it sucks.




EDIT: This is what I originally had for when the card was a Force instead of a Spirit. I like it better than any new stuff I was able to think up, so I'm keeping it, even if it isn't entirely true any more.

Is anybody keeping track of his heads batted in? They should be.

Flying - Blue then white then black. Red for dragons and shit.
Trample - Green. Secondary in red.
Haste - Red. Secondary in green. Rarely black.
Bein' basically kinda a big deal - Red or blu.

The Force of Nature is fairly simple to place, color-wise. Red is mandatory and green is practically a given. He needs an extra color for flying but any of the three remaining could work for that. I initially chose blue, but I shifted it to white so he would fit in one of the shards. It's worth noting that if the Force of Nature was a dragon, he would only need one color - red.

I never considered turning him into a dragon, but the urge to make him a scout is almost overpowering. I mean, come on! He's a friggin' blur! He's running circles around you!

On an unrelated note, the full Alara Reborn Spoiler is up.

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Bonk!

Card of the Day - Thundercloud Hawk

The brief but bountiful break behind us, we're back in business and boy are we Byzantine.




Flash - Blue/green. Rarely white.
Flying - Blue, then white, then black. Red for dragons and such like.
Haste - Red. Secondary in green. Rarely black.
Sacrifice at a certain time - Red. Rarely black. Sacrificing when it attacks or blocks is blue.

Thundercloud Hawk could be justified as green/blue or even black/green. Without haste, it could be mono-blue. But its current form works best in blue and red.

I'm particularly pleased with this card. Combining flash with spark elemental-ness lets you do some nifty stuff. I also feel an irrational attachment to "end of phase" effects.

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Card of the Day - Canyon Drake

Since Alara Reborn is imminent, I need to warm up my color-critique skills so I can properly gripe about it. I'll go through the abilities, linking them to the colors they fit:

Colorlessness - Red or black/red
Flying - Blue, white, black. Can be red on drakes/dragons. Not green.
Trample - Primary in green. Secondary in red.

Canyon Drake has to be red, because of its colorlessness (ironic, eh?). Since it's constant, not activated, that calls for black. Flying, much more common in black than red, moves him even further in that direction. Trample suggests green, but doesn't require it.

Canyon Drake should be black/red. Green is optional (and preferred).

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