I'd forgotten I'd started this set!

­Combat Medic (nah nah nah, coo-oombat medic, nah nah-nah na nah - great, I've got the A-team theme stuck in my head)

So yowsers. Repeatable mass targeted damage prevention. No way that's common nowadays.

And.. actually kinda underpowered actually. Compare Zealous Inquisitor

So, in set, White has a kind of a soldier theme. We'll make this a soldier pump instead.

I considered +0/+1 and ": Put a token copy of ~ into play." But I think I'll hold back "Put a copy of a soldier into play" as a different ability. Possibly Icatian Town.

Most lords are "Other Soldiers you control" for clarity / complexity reasons. However, the +1/+1 doesn't really resonate with a "medic".

Maybe just a toughness pumper similar to Veteran Armorer / Veteran Armorsmith would fit better, plus it could be very cheap. Note that both of those cards are 2 drops with reasonable bodies in addition to their ability.

Oh hey! Awesome! I wanted to get around to Fallen Empires and The Dark with my Homelands Restored deck, but just... all these editing distractions kind of put a halt to everything. Good to see someone's moving forward.

As a side note, I always liked Combat Medic. It is a strong common. At least for its time. But it was never game bustingly strong. Just impacted the board in a way that made your opponent reevaluate all their plays. :p

Combat Medic sure does show how tricky this entire process can be. Red flags abound. I tried to make my cards as close to the original as I could get. But... you know... personal perception tends to flavor everything.

So, some ideas:

"Creatures and players gain Absorb 1" Sounds great. But... um... Protection of the Hekma. That's expensive. And I think you're right. Whatever you end up doing with this card, it would 'feel' better if it stayed a 0/2 for .

": Prevent the next 1 damage to target creature or player. You may not activate this ability during combat." That brings us back to common. But just barely. This still lends to a lot of choices being made. And if you're opponent is trying to figure out whether to attack based upon the amount of available mana you would control next turn, and how best you might employ it... sigh. This is still a big honking red flag.

"Flash. Mulikicker . When ~ enters the battlefield, if you kicked it, prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to any number of target creatures or players for each time it was kicked." Ha! We're back on 'complex but not unreasonable for common' territory. I actually like this version. The biggest problem is that it's too expensive, even as a trick. 7 mana to prevent 2 damage divided? Pfffft.

That said, I know I said I wouldn't want to change the mana cost or the activation, I'd think about it here. If the card flashed, cost and multikicker, it could make a nice surprise. Or if it still cost , but instead multikickered for , that might also be a reasonable trick.

I'm pretty sure I could spend 3,000 more words writing about this easily. But I'll let you get back to designing your set. Stop tempting me to get back to work on my own projects! ;)

I forgot about this set again. What brought you to it, Ryan? I'd like to put some time in, at some point.

Jm: "Not activate during combat" on a combat medic? Seems wrong. I dislike kicker; but I get where you're going with it.