I'm considering moving this and Swiftstab Highwayman from black to red, and introducing some black Backstab cards in their place with more in-pie triggered effects. What do people think?

In playtesting this looked pretty sad compared to Baron's Grunt. The backstab just didn't do very much. It prevented an occasional x/1 from blocking it, but that didn't feel like enough.

I guess it's fine for this ability to not do very much. It's still a 2/1 for , and black gets vanillas with those stats. Not every common has to be great.

Of course, this is currently the only active Backstab card; the others are all inactive, and this is the only one in the skeleton. So maybe I just remove the ability word.

...Although there's actually also Vicious Grifting. And that's in a cycle that wants set keyword mechanics, although it currently doesn't actually manage to get them in all cases. What to do...

Also, there are two other common creatures: Insecure Baronet and Baron's Skyguard. Maybe this card needs rethinking as something entirely different.

This is kind-of a 2/1 creature AND a 1/1 First Strike creature rolled into the one package - almost pseudo double strike. It's a good card for early rushes, though I can understand why it looked Sad next to the Grunt (see my comment on Grunt).

Maybe Backstab could be reworked so that opponents are encouraged to block creatures with it something like Backstab - when this attacks and is unblocked, it deals 1 damage to defending player or a creature that player controls. Kinda like - heh, you didn't see me coming/couldn't stop me so now I strike with impunity wherever and however I wish!!!!! (Using this card specifically as an example).

If you did change Backstab to "unblocked attacker" you could have Red Backstab deal damage, Black backstab (I was going to go with Discard but that's already covered by the various Specters) AND you could also bleed Backstab into Blue as a mill effect.

To clarify, I like both Backstab and Deathtrap, indeed I like almost everything in this set, just trying to provide alternate views which can hopefully help make the set even more awesome than it already is.

Many thanks for the suggestions. You're right that this is kindof halfway to having double strike. Perhaps you're right that I was being overly swayed by how awesome Baron's Grunt is. I'm sure this would be a perfectly serviceable common in limited.

The "unblocked" idea is very interesting. It is very similar to saboteur mechanics like we've seen in many sets before, but saboteur mechanics are fun. I don't think blue needs any more saboteur in this set - it's already got Airlane Bandit, Fluked Corsair, Buccaneer of the Air and Captivating Plunderer, because I decided "get stuff when you hit a player" was a good flavour for sky pirates.

But the distinction between "Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player" and "Whenever ~ attacks and isn't blocked" may be enough to distinguish the flavour. And it'd be more interactions for the uncommon unblockability cards, Terrorcoil Gauntlets and Sightbending Scramblebike...

Yeah, the idea's growing on me. Thanks a lot.

"get stuff when you hit a player" is indeed great flavour for sky pirates. And I agree "deals combat damage to a player" and "attacks and isn't blocked" whilst being somewhat similar do have a different feel to them both mechanically and flavourwise - especially if you make it "attacks and isn't blocked, do THIS instead of dealing damage.