It has been a while my friends, too long in fact. But I’m back now, and with the drive to make this article much more frequent; the creative juices have been working overtime the past month or so.

So where do I start with my return to the writing staff of MDV? For such an occasion it needs to be a special kind of card, something to make a mark and get people to notice. Wait; THAT’S IT! Return! I’m going to build a card designed around returning!

And there are a few forms of return in Magic, but the main two are ‘Return to Hand’ and ‘Return to Play’.  Each of these can be broken down even further, what with the different area in a game to return something from. So what do I go for? Well, I’m a vampire and have returned to my life on MDV, so how about a Resurrection card!

STEP 1: MAIN PREMISE

Now people who have read my article for Avatar week will know about my power scale but I feel I should include it again just to cover all my bases.

The ‘what were they on!?’ Card – This is the category for those cards you wouldn’t pay someone to take from you. Take One With Nothing; What was R&D on that day, coz I recon the world would be a strange place if we all took some.

 

The ‘Comse, Comsa’ Card – Those cards that are nothing special, but could have their uses. Aven Envoy is a prime example in my mind because we all know there is a better version out there in the form of the Ornithopter, but because of colour, type and creature type, the envoy could be better for certain decks.

The ‘Solid Choice’ Card – These are those cards that make for good deck additions, such as Serra Angel and Grizzly Bear. A large number of cards fall into this category.

 

 

The ‘Powerful’ Card – These are cards that are ones most people would build a deck around, like the Bringers. This is the field that my vampire will slide into. 

 

 

The ‘Oh-So Broken’ Card – These are those cards you would chop of your left arm to own. These are things like Black Lotus or the Moxes. 

Please bear in mind, this is how I, personally value cards. Everyone has a different view and a different value system, so take this into consideration when reading this article.

So we already know the style of card we’re creating, but what power rating do we aim for? Well, there are two ratings of animate dead cards in my mind; solid and powerful. Footsteps of the Goryo is a solid choice because it isn’t a permanent effect but has its uses (Legendary Dragon spirits people!), whereas Vigor Mortis is a powerful choice, because of a permanent effect and a bonus involved! Well, we’re trying to make waves here so we’re going with a powerful choice.

STEP 2: RESEARCH

Well the first thing we’re going to look at is some of the existing resurrection cards and see if we can see a concurrent theme running through them:

While searching through the Gatherer on WotC's site I came across a card I haven’t seen since my starting days in Magic; Breath of Life. A white card that returns a creature card from the graveyard to play, something most players nowadays would consider seriously out of the colour pie. But is it? Consider the theme of white; life and rebirth. Doesn’t that cover returning cards from your graveyard?

Anyway, the other two most players would have come across in their gaming lifetime, be it old school players or the new kids on the block, are Vigor Mortis and Zombify. The first thing you’ll notice is the converted mana costs; all have a cmc of four. This suggests that to take a creature from your graveyard is four mana. But wait, doesn’t Vigor Mortis have an added effect; doesn’t that throw our assumption? No; because the ability is fairly specific in that it requires a different form of mana to be used for the card then the cards base colour so it actually balances out.

The second thing to notice is that all the cards are sorceries, meaning the creature can only be returned in your own turn. In fact, while searching the Gatherer, I found only two instant speed resurrection spells; Betrayal of Flesh and Cauldron Dance.

What is interesting about those two cards is that they do very different things for the same cmc of six. But the only one we can really relate to our earlier cards is Betrayal, as the Cauldron ‘switches’ creatures around rather than giving you a creature back. So to improve a resurrection spell to instant speed is an additional two on the cmc; that’s worth knowing because for us to make a wave, we need an unusual resurrection card, so we’re going instant speed.

Here’s where we start actually considering what we want our card to do. Are we just after a vanilla resurrection spell with no thrills, or do we want some added flavour? Well, I have always considered there to be a ‘themed’ resurrection that's been missing from the game of magic; if you're going to return something from the dead, isn’t it now a member of the undead?

But what effect would this have on our card cost wise? Does the fact the creature’s type is changed actually matter? Yes it does; it makes it affectable by new abilities and could also break or start a cycle. Let us not forget that members of the undead are generally black so we will also (possibly) change the colour of our creature. And the fact it's changed to black actually works to its advantage as it makes certain kill spells unable to target it; most have that annoying line ‘target non-black creature’ in them.

But what does a change of creature type and colour cost? We need more research:

Here we have two cards, one which changes the colour of a permanent and one that changes the type of a creature. To start off we notice both the colour and cost; both cost one blue mana. Now we are aware of other cards that change either of these parameters on a card but these are of most interest to us for two reasons. The first is that the effect is permanent, which is what will happen with our resurrection spell and the second is the speed. Both of these are instant speed and so is our resurrection spell. This means we can directly relate the cost across without too much hassle.

One thing to notice is on Artificial Evolution, it specifies that the new creature type cannot be a legend or wall but why is this? The simple answer is, because that will seriously change the rules of the card, as a legend would destroy all copies of the same name; just imagine someone animating a land then turning it legendary! As for a wall, all walls have defender so if you turned a creature into a wall, wouldn’t it gain defender too? But that would cost extra, even if the ability is a hindrance it’s still a gained ability.

So to recap, we’re going for an instant speed resurrection spell which will change the type and colour of the creature we return. We know that this has a target cmc of six, of which two will be blue. But what do we make the other colour, the one related to the resurrection part of our spell? Well I'm going to have to go with what will please the masses and say black; I want to make a wave not rock the boat! So the only thing we’re left with is deciding what we return the creature as, we have three real choices: Skeleton, Zombie or Spirit.

Why spirit you ask? Well, because like the creature type Mummy, very few Ghost creatures were ever created in magic... the first of which were both created all the way back in Legends!

In fact, there are only four Ghosts in Magic: Anaba Ancestor, Chilling Apparition, Ghosts of the Damned and Mischievous Poltergeist. And Mummies? Only two, one of which is an UN card: Cyclopean Mummy and Working Stiff.

So we must follow the new trend set down in Kamigawa, where the dead come back as spirits. So, you ask; which one is it to be? If we are really clever and actually think about it, there is actually only one choice: Spirit. The reason being is that not everything that goes to the graveyard will have a skeleton or even a body for it to come back as a zombie. Sure, both of those types are more closely related to the colour black but I want to go for the type I can argue the corner of and spirits is that type.

So now we have a card with a converted mana cost of six, two points of which are blue and at least one is black. The card is an instant which will change the colour of our creature to black and make it a spirit. Do we need or want any more tweaking done to the card? I don’t think so, it’s a pretty flavoursome card as is and the mana cost actually plays out fairly right.

STEP 3: THE FINISHED CARD!

Well here we are people, our finished card. I would thank the owner of this image but have misplaced the web address! (Sorry Owner). If you know who owns this image, I’d like to know so I can credit them.

Unlike the last couple of times, since I haven’t had any responses to my call; I’ve play tested the card myself! To make real use of it, you need to play it in a U/B spirit deck and even then, it’s a bit too slow to make any real dent on the game. However, it does allow you to power up cards like Ribbons of the Reikai with more helpful creatures. If I were to recreate the card, I believe I would drop the speed to sorcery and in doing so, drop the cost making the card faster. The only real benefit of the card being an instant is it allows you to pull a creature at the end of your opponents turn or to get a blocker, if a rather expensive one. The one side effect benefit of this card is that the creature becomes a black spirit, a rather hard creature set to kill when you consider it; the most commonly played creature destroy cards are Dark Banishing and Rend Flesh, or at least it was the last time I actually played in a standard match.

NEXT TIME

Okay people, here is your chance to tell me what you want to see next time around. I can tell you now that the next card will be an enchantment, but what it does is up to you; just choose one of the below options and place it in your message in the forum. Not a member of the forum?

Why not?

Only kidding, just email me at LutherAD[at]hotmail.co.uk with your vote.

• Armour – An Aura enchantment that protects our creature and makes him last longer in the fight!
• Hand = Life – An enchantment that converts the cards in our hand into much needed life.
• Alternative Play – An enchantment with an alternative way to put creatures into play.

So get voting for your favourite option and we’ll see what comes out on top next time in If I Worked At R&D...

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

Articles Spotlights from 2006
The Games People Play - Tactical Magic.
If I worked at R&D
The Beginner’s Guide to Rogue
Druid Week Primer
Opting In: Ravnica
MDV Idol: Finale!
Avatar Week Primer
Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
Lands-More than Mana: Part One
Raiding Ravnica: Guildmages and You!