TRO: 3087 - Ghost of Blake

3087 is a Battletech alternate universe where The Jihad never happened. Instead, political fracturing continues in the wake of the technological and military upheavals of the 3050's. Its history is told through the pages and designs of TRO: 3087. This entry is the last of 3087. 3087 has been fun and educational, but muted interest has directed my time towards more fruitful projects.

See ya, Rabbi Martinez.

GOB-111 Ghost of Blake
Overview
Like other new designs fielded by The Word of Blake, we know little about the Ghost of Blake. We assume it’s produced on Terra or on some hidden-away corner of the Inner Sphere. Information we have gleaned has come from battlefield encounters and rare battle ROMs of captured units.

The Ghost of Blake is designed as a covert operations platform deployed in standard Comstar Level I’s of six battlemechs, usually comprised of five -111 models and one -112 model, though recovered records indicate units with two -112 models have been tested.

During the brief existence of the Terran Protectorate, Ghost of Blake units were deployed for testing on Protectorate-aligned worlds to probe defense forces.

Records of operations on other worlds are hard to come by. The ‘Mech’s stealth armor kept it from being positively identified, and ROM efforts to cover its production and operations seem have been amongst The Word’s highest priorities. Until the late seventies, rumors of a ghost ‘mech which appears and disappears by magic were written off as exaggerations by backwoods garrison forces and small time mercenaries rumor-mongering for higher pay.

Gul Dukat on the Battlefield

So, why not make Magic cards for Gul Dukat? He undergoes a lot of changes over the course of Deep Space Nine.

Before we meet him, he in charge of the occupation of Bajor. Oppression is kind of his middle name. Which is good because that only leaves his first name as a complete mystery.

I'd like him to tap down more than one guy to represent more of the mass oppression of the occupation, but that'd be a bit much.

This is the Dukat we first meet. He's securely in the Cardassian fold and okay with an oppressive, cutthroat system as long as he's got a shot at cutting some throats himself. His body should be a bit bigger given his second ability but the Megrim ability plus the card draw lockdown are pretty strong against certain decks.

Remember when Dukat was a pirate with a kick-ass Klingon Bird of Prey? Those were weird times. Anyway, he's a bit more scrappy and not at all interested in the system. This is as cool and punk as Dukat gets and he was still a creepy, misogynistic bag of dicks. 

He could've gotten away with being a 2/2 given that he can't block, but the steady decline of his power over these three cards was something I was really fond of.

Not even a dickbag joke on this card. I hate these half-lords as much as the next guy, but Dukat only cares about one thing. My alternative build was a complicated thing where creatures could exile a single non-creature permanent if they were unblocked. I liked the reference to the start of The Dominion War, but I couldn't make it work without using Haunt, which everyone hates.

"Waltz" Dukat is the greatest. He's a paper-thin, nothing-held-back, all-in Hyphen-Crazy McCrazyPants. His activation cost probably should've been 1BR or 2BR, but what are you gonna do?

Casting cards from exile is generally a blue, mono-red, or mythic rare thing, but it fits the phenomenal cosmic powers he gets from the Pah-wraiths. It also works with the definitely-black drawback. 

I could have cranked it up as the exile happening on each upkeep, but that's a big, big penalty in multiplayer. That's use-or-lose up to eight cards every turn. Even if I gave those cards flash I'd still have to make him into a really, really aggressive card for that to balance out.

At the beginning of each upkeep, exile the top card of your library.

You may play cards exiled this turn by Dukat, of Course He Causes The Apocalypse from exile as though they had flash. Spells cast this way cost 1R less to cast.

Not too bad.

It's the Magic: Hungry Eyes

So, last weekend, Jay Treat over at Goblin Artisans put up this Weekend Art Challenge. It was based around an image by keepwalking07. In case you can't/won't click over to see the image yourself, it's a massive silhouetted mecha standing amidst a ruined landscape.

Jay's challenge was to create a common or uncommon colored artifact based on that image. Bonus points were offered for a card whose color and status as an artifact were made more relevant by its rules text.

My first thought was to create a piece of equipment because it seems every submission I make to Goblin Artisans has the desperate, sweaty need to be recognized as a unique snowflake. Despite the fact that it came from TMI, the first set from the Deep-Seated Personal Issues block, I was relatively happy with the result:

Wraith of Loss

So, I read Goblin Artisans pretty regularly and they have a weekend design contest based on a piece of art. This week it was Pavel Lagutin's "Day Watch" game poster. It's a pretty cool picture.

Anyway, the prompt was to build something post-apocalyptic, so I wanted something that would survive and apocalypse. My first run through of Wraith of Loss was this:

I really wanted to see if the timing triggers for get-a-second-combat-phase cards like Act of Aggression would look okay with another ability. While it wouldn't be a good idea to have "blink" effects--exile and return immediately, exile and return at end of turn, and exile not immediately, but before the end of turn--it's a headspace that entertains me.

It's the Magic: Afterimage

Shiny!

Ever since last week, I've been excited about combining Glitterfang with Burning Inquiry. 

As my two favorite one-drops for red mana, I'm eager to make a card that does a bit of both. Not literally both of course, but a bit of each.

It has a scaled-back version of Burning Inquiry--in that everyone has to draw a card, then discard one at random--but with the swing of making Glitterfangs for each card specifically discarded this way.

It's the Magic: Dervishes

Yeah, yeah. I've played Gatecrash and it's pretty cool, but both of my Orzhov decks are awful, so fuck it; today I'm talking about custom card creation. Specifically a concept that I'm deeply in love with:

The idea with Twin-Knife Dervish (TKD) is that it can split up the damage dealt by a group of blocking creatures by giving them first strike. Then, it can simply shrug off that damage if the total isn't enough to kill it. Essentially, it uses first strike and double strike to fight two different battles, like a master swordsman cutting through waves of enemies.

It's the Magic: Well-Adjusted Scientist

I make a lot of cards, and I try not to publish too many of them because I find other people's custom cards boring or stupid. Anyway, while I wait for more feedback on my other string of It's the Magic articles, I'm putting up some of the more conceptual and fun cards I've made.

Man, despite the fact that it is undeniably a generic sitcom, How I Met Your Mother does have some high points. Anyway, I like Uiel as the one that survives, a creature that dodges the "X all creatures" effects. He strangely dies to Divine Reckoning which targets a specific group of creatures. I'll be honest though; I'm not sure if he's unaffected by Hour of Reckoning, which affects "all nontoken creatures," Aboshan, which affects "all creatures without flying," Akroma's Vengeance, which affects all creatures, but also affects artifacts and enchantments, Awakening, which is like Akroma's Vengeance, but specifically says "all creatures" before mentioning lands, or Apocalypse, which affects all permanents, which include creatures. I'm guessing "no," "yes," "yes," "yes," and "yes."

It's the Magic: Boat Drafting

New Hotness

So, I ordered a set of 12 booster packs from each of The Scars of Mirrodin block. Ideally, I could draft it with friends and become familiar with the rise of Phyrexia over Mirrodin and get familiar with the block. Eventually, I just said "fuck it" and brought it out on the boat to draft solo.

I was going to blog about all of the fun plays and things I learned about Scars of Mirrodin, but I just didn't work. It was boring. Just juggling mana drops and card draw until one side could break through. I had a Rot Wolf versus two other creatures and everyone was swinging all in. The Rot Wolf only lost because the other guy played a Mutagenic Growth that made their infect guy just big enough to get the last poison counter.

It was an ugly win, but then any win with Mutagenic Growth is.