Multiverse: Sword of Epic Rage

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CardName: Sword of Epic Rage Cost: {3} Type: Artifact - Equipment Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Equipped creature gets +5/+0 and doublestrike. Equip: {4} {1}{R}{R}: Sword of Epic Rage becomes an enchantment in addition to its other types. All damage dealt to Sword of Epic Rage's controller is doubled. Any player may activate this ability. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Silly String Rare

Sword of Epic Rage

Artifact – Equipment

Equipped creature gets +5/+0 and doublestrike.

Equip: {4}

: Sword of Epic Rage becomes an enchantment in addition to its other types. All damage dealt to Sword of Epic Rage's controller is doubled. Any player may activate this ability.

Created on 26 Jan 2013 by Sorrow

History: [-]

2013-01-26 15:44:42: Sorrow created the card Sword of Epic Rage

by Sorrow:

This attempt #2 at representing a cursed artifact.

by Sorrow:

In this instance, the enchantment part is used to show that it's cursed.

by jmgariepy:

[Edit: My apologies Sorrow. Sometimes I just start typing and forget to stop. By the time I got down to the end of my comment (which I had to abruptly stop myself from continuing), I realized that I was writing an article. Most of what's here has more to do with the subject of drawbacks on Magic cards... a subject that I do find interesting, so you got me talking. Feel free to disregard anything in there. I won't be insulted.]

You know, I do like this card, but it does such a great job showing why we don't use cards with drawbacks as much anymore. Some players will never play it, because they wouldn't want the bad stuff to happen, no matter what the good stuff is. Some players will just get a +5/+0 doublestrike on the cheap, because their opponent doesn't play red. In the end, most everyone will be unhappy with it.

That said, this iteration is at least flavorful. I give a lot of points for flavor... it helps give players a reason for why we're doing what we're doing. I like the idea behind cursed artifacts... it's a tough bugger to crack, I know.

The three biggest problems I see with this card right now is:

The ability can only be activated with red mana. That means this card is unfair to 60% of all magic players. The fact that it's fair in the meta-game means nothing to two people who always play by themselves around a kitchen table, one who always plays green and the other who always play blue.

This stops being an equipment when you activate the curse. That's a huge disapointment. To the other 40% of the decks this plays against, this card might as well read "Looks cool, but all your opponent has to do to shut it off is pay {3}

, so don't bother."

Too Swingy even when it is fair. I could just block your 7/2 double striker with a 1/1, activate this, then swing on my turn with my team. You'll probably lose. If I couldn't block on my turn, you probably auto-won with your 7/2 double striker. Story cards like this... you want a sense of interaction when playing them. This is "Let's flip a coin and see if I win."

I think the reason why these problems are all adding up is because you're trying to design a rare, and rare cursed equipment is going to come with all this baggage that makes them exciting (like Phyrexian Negator), but not fun to play. Miss your target and you end up with cards that are not fun to play, and are actively bad (Morinfen, for example). The line between the two is tragically difficult to find.

There's certainly plenty of room for goofy and cursed. Roughly everything with the word 'Jinxed' in it is fun (most recently, Jinxed Idol) even when it isn't neccessarily good. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of room for effecient with a drawback, too. An uncommon that's slightly better than a common, but can be turned against you, but you have an escape clause is great.

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