Everyone has those cards that they're dissappointed with. Either you got your hopes up during spoiler season and were let down when you finally saw the card, or you just plain out know a card is and and wish it was just a little different to make it more playable. There are a lot of cards like these, cards that most people would agree that Wizards outright screwed up on. Well, my goal here is to get people to tweak the cards they think should have been... Well, something better. The goal is not to make a broken card, but instead a good card that could at least be played as opposed to its original design. I'll start us off with probably one of the most famous cards for this type of category...
Emmara Tandris3GW
Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (Rare)
Flash
Creature tokens you control are indestructible.
3/5
Now this is what Emmara should have been in my opinion. This would be a solid version of what I would have expected from the Selesnyian Champion, but instead we were given... Well. You remember. At least with this version she can hop in and save your creature tokens from a board wipe or alter combat heavily in your favor. I still gave her a big butt for reasons indescribable.
Feel free to post cards you would have liked to see turn out a little different, and comment on the cards already posted! All discussion welcome.
I think it would have been very interesting (though rules-question heavy) to have her rules text include "Other creatures you control are tokens. (This only applies while those cards are on the battlefield.)" Populate becomes crazy.
Grizzled Bear 1G
Common
Creature - Bear ...but sooner or later Bear's gonna cut you down.
[3/2]
The thing is I consider the Runeclaw Bear to be a wasted opportunity for the green to have the edge in the creature department. Nowadays we have a Silvercoat Lion wich is basically the same only in White.
I believe the story unfolds as follow:
Wizards wanted to update the Bear upon entering the new age of Core Sets in Magic 2010 making it a 3/2 vanilla. The things that go for it are:
1) Flavor text: M10 - "Bears aren't always as strong and as mean as you imagine. Some are even stronger and meaner." that hints that some bears are stronger than the others. and then later in M11 - "Nature has grown tired of the impositions of men and will begin to outfit its creations with tools for bloody instruction." that implies that this bear is augmented in some way.
2) The art: Look at the posture of the bear. He's bulky in a way that his front limbs seem to be bigger than the rear. This implies aggressivnes - the same aggressivnes as we have in creatures whose Power exceeds Toughness. Hence 3/2 and not 2/3.
3) Silvercoat Lion: the sole reason why they gave a standard bear to the White is that they planned to give the Green a new, better version.
4) Balancing?: The 3 Power opens a lot of possibilities in trading with other creatures that however costmore in other colors thus improving the value of the 2CMC Green creature by a big margin. It also makes it more painful to leave it unblocked in the early stages of the game. On the other hand a toughness of 2 still makes it tradeable to many of the utility creatures or other small creatures that the opponent doesn't feel so bad to trade.
Why didn't this happen? The answer is: Centaur Courser. The would be 3/2 bear obsoletes that creature. Paying extra 1 for just 1 point in Toughness is ridiculous. At the same time the centaur played its own pivotal role in the powercreep process. It made the cost of Trained Armodon slightly less green allowing to include it in a multicolor draft decks that may struggle producing double green mana at turn 3. So when it came down to chosing between Runeclaw Bear and Centaur Courser someone chickened out and went the safe route taking only a smallishly tiny step in powercreep. It's not like they printed a Baneslayer Angel in the same set though...
On the note of agressive vanilla creatures: Alpine Grizzly works excellently. While it trades with 2/2 morphs, letting one through and getting 4 damage really hurts. And that creates gameplay experience. Do they want to trade a potentially good morph against a vanilla common? The 3/2 bear could do the same for the Magic 20XX coresets. I hope they replace the Centaur with Alpine Grizzly or some 2/4 vanilla. Here's also a viable candidate: Rib Cage Spider - not exactly vanilla but replaces two obsolote creatures.
Cosmic Horror3BBB
Creature — Horror [R]
First strike
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 3BBB. If you do, each opponent sacrifices a creature. If you don't, sacrifice Cosmic Horror and it deals 7 damage to you.
[7/7]
I had to do this one, since it was the first rare I ever cracked. It wasn't ultra-bad at the time (it's pretty close to ultra-bad now) but it still ranked well below both Force of Nature and Lord of the Pit in its category of high-upkeep fatties. I feel like the above fix was within both the technology and the design mindset of the time (Legends) and would have put this guy on even footing with its peers.
Everyone has those cards that they're dissappointed with. Either you got your hopes up during spoiler season and were let down when you finally saw the card, or you just plain out know a card is and and wish it was just a little different to make it more playable. There are a lot of cards like these, cards that most people would agree that Wizards outright screwed up on. Well, my goal here is to get people to tweak the cards they think should have been... Well, something better. The goal is not to make a broken card, but instead a good card that could at least be played as opposed to its original design. I'll start us off with probably one of the most famous cards for this type of category...
Emmara Tandris3GW
Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (Rare)
Flash
Creature tokens you control are indestructible.
3/5
Now this is what Emmara should have been in my opinion. This would be a solid version of what I would have expected from the Selesnyian Champion, but instead we were given... Well. You remember. At least with this version she can hop in and save your creature tokens from a board wipe or alter combat heavily in your favor. I still gave her a big butt for reasons indescribable.
Feel free to post cards you would have liked to see turn out a little different, and comment on the cards already posted! All discussion welcome.
You can fiddle with numbers, add keywords, but that still won't make her interesting, she would be efficient at best.
Many of the guild champions were cool (Varolz, Vorel, Melek, even Tajic and the Gruul guy), Emmara does essentially nothing most of the time. Ridiculous stats and mana cost just added insult to injury.
You would have to completely redesign the card.
My goal was to really just make her useful, I suppose. At least this version could be much more playable.
Prophet of Kruphix3GU
Creature - Human Wizard
Untap all creatures and lands you control during each other player's untap step.
You may cast creature cards as though they had flash
[4/4]
Give her a little power and watch her value grow. I absolutely love this card but the weak body makes it unplayable in most 1v1 formats. Still probably my favorite Johnny card of all time in magic.
The problem with Emmara using indestructible is that if she is removed post combat, then all token creatures you control with lethal damage on them will also die.
I think you could just add back in the Voice of Resurgence token that she was supposed to have.
When Emmara Tandris enters the field, put a green white Elemental creature token onto the field with “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control.”
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to creature tokens you control.
Prophet of Kruphix3GU
Creature - Human Wizard
Untap all creatures and lands you control during each other player's untap step.
You may cast creature cards as though they had flash
[4/4]
Give her a little power and watch her value grow. I absolutely love this card but the weak body makes it unplayable in most 1v1 formats. Still probably my favorite Johnny card of all time in magic.
I'm pretty sure both prophet and kruphix were explicitly designed for EDH, where they are absurdly powerful. That said, making prophet a 4/4 is huge overkill. All you need to do to make prophet playable is give it a turtles body, 1/4, and have there be cards in standard that actually want to go into a prophet deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Your Emara should grant 0: Regenerate instead, to deal with the 'she dies after combat' issue. Or you could have the indestructibility persist through her death (Titania's Song has Oracle wording that covers this that could be stolen).
As far as my suggestion. Mercadian Masques had a lot of 'cool' cards that were not playable or even close to it. One creature in particular, Erithizon, was almost playable at the time and would be really interesting as a 6/6 with trample. Sometimes you might just attack with it and suffer the drawback, other times you might try to remove all other creatures and get the +1/+1 counter yourself.
GraveTitan, I believe that the prophet of Kruphix should also be able to untap artifacts, just as seedborn muse does, since there are numerous artifacts that have abilities that requrie them to be tapped, and untapping those artifacts every turn is amazingly useful.
For my own design:
Dromar, the Banisher
Casting Cost: 3WUB
Legendary Creature - dragon
Power/Toughess: 6/6
Flying.
Whenever Dromar, the Banisher deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2U. If you do, choose a color, then return all creatures that that player controls of that color to their owner's hands.
Dromar is very nice, but, unlike the other dragons of his cycle, he could potentially hinder his controller; in fact, he affects himself three-fifths of the time, which means that he is very difficult to use, if his controller's opponent has a deck that contains black, white, or blue creatures. My version of him takes inspiration from the abilities of Crosis and Darigaaz, which affect only a single player at a time.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Those who would trade their freedoms for security will have neither.”-Benjamin Franklin
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
I like your version of Dromar, but I wouldn't call him a bad card.
Truth Or Tale1U
Instant [U]
Reveal the top three cards of your library and separate them into two piles. An opponent chooses one of those piles. Put the chosen pile into your hand, then put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order.
Emmara Tandris 3GW
Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (Rare)
Flash
Creature tokens you control are indestructible.
3/5
Now this is what Emmara should have been in my opinion. This would be a solid version of what I would have expected from the Selesnyian Champion, but instead we were given... Well. You remember. At least with this version she can hop in and save your creature tokens from a board wipe or alter combat heavily in your favor. I still gave her a big butt for reasons indescribable.
Feel free to post cards you would have liked to see turn out a little different, and comment on the cards already posted! All discussion welcome.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Common
Creature - Bear
...but sooner or later Bear's gonna cut you down.
[3/2]
The thing is I consider the Runeclaw Bear to be a wasted opportunity for the green to have the edge in the creature department. Nowadays we have a Silvercoat Lion wich is basically the same only in White.
I believe the story unfolds as follow:
Wizards wanted to update the Bear upon entering the new age of Core Sets in Magic 2010 making it a 3/2 vanilla. The things that go for it are:
1) Flavor text: M10 - "Bears aren't always as strong and as mean as you imagine. Some are even stronger and meaner." that hints that some bears are stronger than the others. and then later in M11 - "Nature has grown tired of the impositions of men and will begin to outfit its creations with tools for bloody instruction." that implies that this bear is augmented in some way.
2) The art: Look at the posture of the bear. He's bulky in a way that his front limbs seem to be bigger than the rear. This implies aggressivnes - the same aggressivnes as we have in creatures whose Power exceeds Toughness. Hence 3/2 and not 2/3.
3) Silvercoat Lion: the sole reason why they gave a standard bear to the White is that they planned to give the Green a new, better version.
4) Balancing?: The 3 Power opens a lot of possibilities in trading with other creatures that however cost more in other colors thus improving the value of the 2CMC Green creature by a big margin. It also makes it more painful to leave it unblocked in the early stages of the game. On the other hand a toughness of 2 still makes it tradeable to many of the utility creatures or other small creatures that the opponent doesn't feel so bad to trade.
Why didn't this happen? The answer is: Centaur Courser. The would be 3/2 bear obsoletes that creature. Paying extra 1 for just 1 point in Toughness is ridiculous. At the same time the centaur played its own pivotal role in the powercreep process. It made the cost of Trained Armodon slightly less green allowing to include it in a multicolor draft decks that may struggle producing double green mana at turn 3. So when it came down to chosing between Runeclaw Bear and Centaur Courser someone chickened out and went the safe route taking only a smallishly tiny step in powercreep. It's not like they printed a Baneslayer Angel in the same set though...
On the note of agressive vanilla creatures: Alpine Grizzly works excellently. While it trades with 2/2 morphs, letting one through and getting 4 damage really hurts. And that creates gameplay experience. Do they want to trade a potentially good morph against a vanilla common? The 3/2 bear could do the same for the Magic 20XX coresets. I hope they replace the Centaur with Alpine Grizzly or some 2/4 vanilla. Here's also a viable candidate: Rib Cage Spider - not exactly vanilla but replaces two obsolote creatures.
Creature — Horror [R]
First strike
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 3BBB. If you do, each opponent sacrifices a creature. If you don't, sacrifice Cosmic Horror and it deals 7 damage to you.
[7/7]
I had to do this one, since it was the first rare I ever cracked. It wasn't ultra-bad at the time (it's pretty close to ultra-bad now) but it still ranked well below both Force of Nature and Lord of the Pit in its category of high-upkeep fatties. I feel like the above fix was within both the technology and the design mindset of the time (Legends) and would have put this guy on even footing with its peers.
My goal was to really just make her useful, I suppose. At least this version could be much more playable.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Creature - Human Wizard
Untap all creatures and lands you control during each other player's untap step.
You may cast creature cards as though they had flash
[4/4]
Give her a little power and watch her value grow. I absolutely love this card but the weak body makes it unplayable in most 1v1 formats. Still probably my favorite Johnny card of all time in magic.
I think you could just add back in the Voice of Resurgence token that she was supposed to have.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to creature tokens you control.
I'm pretty sure both prophet and kruphix were explicitly designed for EDH, where they are absurdly powerful. That said, making prophet a 4/4 is huge overkill. All you need to do to make prophet playable is give it a turtles body, 1/4, and have there be cards in standard that actually want to go into a prophet deck.
- Manite
As far as my suggestion. Mercadian Masques had a lot of 'cool' cards that were not playable or even close to it. One creature in particular, Erithizon, was almost playable at the time and would be really interesting as a 6/6 with trample. Sometimes you might just attack with it and suffer the drawback, other times you might try to remove all other creatures and get the +1/+1 counter yourself.
For my own design:
Casting Cost: 3WUB
Legendary Creature - dragon
Power/Toughess: 6/6
Flying.
Whenever Dromar, the Banisher deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2U. If you do, choose a color, then return all creatures that that player controls of that color to their owner's hands.
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”-Thomas Jefferson
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of its user.”-Theodore Roosevelt
“Patriotism means to stand by one's country; it does not mean to stand by one's president.”-Theodore Roosevelt
Truth Or Tale 1U
Instant [U]
Reveal the top three cards of your library and separate them into two piles. An opponent chooses one of those piles. Put the chosen pile into your hand, then put all other cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in any order.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate