­

Original Card: Heart Wolf ­

­
• Reduced cost by . ­
­
• Color shifted from red to white. ­
­
• Used to give +2/+0 and first strike. Now grants Dwarf Guard for first strike and +2/+2. ­
­
• Removed "When that creature leaves the battlefield this turn, sacrifice Heart Wolf." ­
­
• Removed from "Activate this ability only during combat."
­

Ug. A cool concept, but a weak way to portray the idea of a dwarf riding a wolf.

I fixed what I could, but I got to admit that I'm still not a fan of the resulting card. It's mostly upgrades, but then I dropped to sorcery speed, because I didn't want this to cause ground stalls. This is also flagged as a high candidate for uncommon.

But... ug. One of those cards I want to 'fix'. And by 'fix', I mean make a completely different card from the ground up, which is the exact thing I shouldn't be doing, so I didn't..

That's a questionable set of changes, I know. Many people don't like banding, and 'Bands with others' is a messy mess mess. But now that Guard is a little cleaner, I figured we could use it without being embarrassed (and I do like how guard can allow other abilities to be tacked on... in this case first strike.) And I'm not sure, but I think Heart Wolf was trying to be a cleaner version of banding. At least that's the argument I heard Wizards make for Kjeldoran Elite Guard.

In the process, I moved Heart Wolf over to white. Maybe red can have Dwarf Guard, who knows? But it's bound to spur a lot less argument if guard hangs out with the great white.