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Skeleton |
CardName: Giant Albatross Cost: 1B Type: Creature - Bird Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Flying When Giant Albatross dies, each player that controls a creature that dealt damage to Giant Albatross this turn loses 2 life, then sacrifices those creatures. Flavour Text: And I had done an hellish thing... I had killed the bird that made the breeze to blow. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner Set/Rarity: Homelands Restored Common Flying
When Giant Albatross dies, each player that controls a creature that dealt damage to Giant Albatross this turn loses 2 life, then sacrifices those creatures. And I had done an hellish thing... I had killed the bird that made the breeze to blow.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner |
Code: CB04 History: [-] Add your comments: |
Original Card: Giant Albatross
- Changed from blue to black
- Removed triggered cost.
- Remvoved 'can't be regenerated' clause
- Combined the life loss with the creature destruction, instead of one prevents the other
- Changed artwork
- Added flavor text
It doesn't take much poking to realize the Giant Albatross isn't a blue creature. Maybe you could argue it's white, and I might move it there if the skeleton needs it.
Both pieces of artwork, however, were very blue. So, I pulled forward the artwork from Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the accompanying quote. The flavor text probably isn't long for this card. The artwork might be acceptable as a wink in the middle of Homelands, but Coleridge himself doesn't really belong here.
Also, this card made me realize that the artist credit line should be filled out in all the cards. It didn't really bug me that Amy Weber and Pete Venters weren't getting credit, since their names are plastered all over the original cards. But I'm bound to take some custom Homelands artwork in at some point. And those DeviantArtists should get their due.
"Prevent it from dying in this way" is pretty old-style woolly wording. How about: "for each creature that dealt damage to Giant Albatross this turn, destroy that creature unless its controller pays 2 life."
Thank you, Alex. I was struggling to find the obvious wording.
I was hoping the reformatting of this card would make it readable, but I guess if I want to keep the Coleridge, I got to toss the first two lines. I should probably find more set appropriate art, too. I like the Doré, but it doesn't look like Homelands.
Also occurred to me. The card could read like this:
Flying, deathtouch
Lose 2 life: ~ loses deathtouch until end of turn. Any player may activate this ability.
Which is close enough mechanically. But I think you lose the albatross flavor somehow...
I really like giving the option for the opponent to shoot themselves in the foot. But that's been blind-siding me to some of the problem with Giant Albatross. It's already a funky card before you get to the "if your opponent is willing to pay 2 life..." part. It didn't need to get any weirder.
So, I'm pulling the clause and reading it as a detriment. Now killing an albatross results in the death of your creature and the loss of 2 life. Which is probably fine for game balance reasons. This could have been a 1/1 flying deathtoucher after all.
Wording needs to say "dealt damage to CARDNAME this turn", like Sengir Bats.
Oh, yes, of course. No need to involve creatures that randomly dealt damage to a pumped up Albatross from 5 turns ago. Editing.
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