Original Card: Veldrane of Sengir ­

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• Reduced casting cost by .
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• Removed activated ability.
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• Added "can't be blocked by green creatures".
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• Added pseudo-flanking for -3/-3.
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What a pain Veldrane was. He's the poster-child for everything wrong in this set. Looks cool, but laughably overcosted, cares about the opponent's basic lands and his ability comes with a drawback. Geesh.

I had to play around quite a bit to get to this version. I'm not really happy with it, but I won't be happy with any version. To make Veldrane a good card, you have to remove everything that makes him Veldrane, I suppose.

My first design was to just make Veldrane a 5/5 forestwalker. Which would have been fine if I could demote him to uncommon. But he's a Legend, so he needs to look Legendary. There ain't nothing wrong with a forestwalking Legend... but I kind of assume that when you're on this level of play, there's a good chance that your opponent is casting his green spells without using Forests. That, and Veldrane isn't trailblazing... he's chilling with wolves. I figured 'can't be blocked by green creatures' was both a better flavor fit, and a better power-level fit.

The -3/-3 came from him originally hurting himself for evasion. Now he hurts other creatures he can't evade. A good combo, too. The only color capable of regularly blocking him with profit is Green.

Oh, one more thing. I'm not fond of reducing the casting cost of Legends. I'd rather pull the card up to match the exploded casting cost. Veldrane resisted, though. I could have made him a 7/7 for , I suppose, and maybe do something bigger with that -3/-3. But it feels weird to turn a Human Rogue into something that large and explosive. Hmmm...

Your wording on the -3/-3 is halfway between two abilities. You want to be either a triggered ability ("Whenever a creature blocks ~, it gets -3/-3 UEOT"), or a static ability ("Creatures blocking ~ get -3/-3").

Good point. Will edit.