Multiverse: Phoenix Flame

All challenges | Upcoming Challenges | Make a new design challenge! | All challenges (text)

Mockup
Plain

CardName: Phoenix Flame Cost: 2RR Type: Instant Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Choose a number. Target player sacrifices a creature with power equal to that number, then, if they do, they return a creature card with power equal to that number from his or her graveyard to the battlefield. Flavour Text: "I'm back! Did you miss me?" —Chandra Nalaar Set/Rarity: Multiverse Design Challenge Rare

Phoenix Flame

Instant

Choose a number. Target player sacrifices a creature with power equal to that number, then, if they do, they return a creature card with power equal to that number from his or her graveyard to the battlefield.

"I'm back! Did you miss me?"
—Chandra Nalaar

Created on 16 Feb 2014 by jmgariepy

History:

2014-02-16 03:47:27: jmgariepy created the card Phoenix Flame

by jmgariepy:

For Challenge # 099 Based off of Regenesis #3. Alex made the assumption that Regenesis #3 was probably a {w} {b} card with {u} {g} flavor. So did I... but I spent way too long trying to figure out how to give this effect a Black/White flavor. I kept working with ideas like burying someone alive, the Magician Trick called "Apprentice's Revenge", and some sort of way to forcibly martyr and resurrect someone. But each of these ideas kept running smack into the reality of how the card operates. Regenesis #3 does, like, 3 different things (Flicker, Creature kill and Recurring Nightmare.) None of those ideas really caught all three modes, and it just made the flavor look weak when it didn't.

Red, on the other hand, rarely plays the resurrection game, but it does do it with creatures named 'Phoenix'. And if I was to make a red Zombify, it probably would end up a lot like this. Phoenix Flame:

Chooses a number. I know that's not specifically red, but it does remind me of Red's sense of whimsy.

Resurrection is based on the creature's power.

Often kills a creature, then pulls it right back out of the grave, which is reminiscent of how a Phoenix plunges into a volcano to be born anew.

Straight up killing a creature is rare in red, but it's still a part of its color pie, and can be done if there's a flavor justification. Straight creature kill shouldn't be in blue and green, and isn't appropriate for white.

A sense of chaos permeates the card. When the Phoenix Flames doesn't do what the flavor infers the card will do (namely, when the card return a different creature, or kills the creature outright), player will just shrug their shoulders, and say "Well, that's red."

As an aside, I cleaned up the loophole Jack noticed in the original card by adding 'if they do'. Now the card can't just be used as as an instant speed Zombify.

Add your comments: