Wednesday, October 25, 2017

CCDD 10/25/17—surprise auras

Cool Card Design of the Day
10/25/2017 - Here are some auras that can be played faster, cheaper, or both in specific situations.

Spell Ward costs more to cast with flash because you can counter a spell or ability by doing so.

Scars of the Hunt gets real cheap after a creature takes damage. The flash is less useful, unless you can Rile or Dual Shot it or fight a little double first striker.

Stand Fast is a Glorious Anthem that can die if your creature dies, but the surprise lets you cast this after blockers are declared and for even less.

If you look closely, you'll see a trend across these four designs where the condition becomes more and more under your control. More Mouths to Feed merely asks you to play some wurms.

Design a surprise aura? I found the design space rather small for the reactive designs, but the proactive ones open that up a good bit.


  1. Protective Weave 2G
    Enchantment - Aura (u)
    Enchant creature
    ~ has flash as long as you control a Spider.
    Enchanted creature gets +3/+3.

  2. Sudden Stop 2W
    Enchantment Aura (C)
    Surprise - Sudden Stop may be played as though it had flash if it targets a creature with haste.
    Enchanted creature can't attack or block

  3. More Mouths to Feed is a lovely concept for a design. The idea of a Wurm opening up a mouth you didn’t know it had fits the mechanics to a T. Awesome.

    Leeching Fangs
    Enchantment - Aura - U
    Enchant creature
    Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has deathtouch and lifelink.
    Surprise - You may cast this for WB and as though it had flash if you gained life this turn.

    1. I like the lifelink / surprise-on-life-gain pairing. Although lifelink would pair even better with surprise-on-life-loss.

  4. Insight of Arcanis 3UUU
    Enchantment arua
    Enchant Creature
    Enchanted creature has "t: draw three cards"
    Surprise - You may cast this for UUU[not sure on this cost] and as though it had flash if you have no other cards in you hand [or 7 cards in you hand, thoughts].

    1. Neat. Even without surprise, I worry the ability to put this on hexproof and/or indestructible creatures makes it better than Arcanis himself.