Designing Cards Is Hard

There's always a lot of armchair quarterbacking when it comes to things we love, right? A way that we think we could do it better.

But it doesn't take long to figure out how much more challenging the work we admire is to do.

In a Reddit Legacy thread, someone said, "I swear to god if they printed a goblin that was red Thalia it would be instantly playable."

So I asked: What could that look like, though and be thematically in red? Because obviously that card would be pretty crazy, right?

And the responses were all so banal. Riffs on what we already have (Eidolon effects, Harsh Mentor-which isn't a bad place to go but it isn't a red Thalia, either-, Magus of the Moon [which we have? And would be horribly degenerate at two mana], or Dire Fleet Daredevil, which again, we have...). Now, I don't want to say these are terrible ideas! They aren't. They just are a) easy, b) repeats of what we already have and c) don't answer my question at all.

Someone tried to come up with a Trinisphere knock off concept: a goblin that makes so much noise mages can't concentrate, but didn't actually elaborate on it, just said 'goblin that makes everything cost 3'.

And then there was the person who came up with

RW
Spells cost 1 more to cast.
2/2

C'mon, man. That isn't even TRYING. That's just adding white and a tax effect. When I asked how this was thematically red, the poster replied: "It's a goblin", editing in the text 'Goblin Soldier' after I had asked.

There are black goblins. There are artifact goblins. There are green goblins. Being a goblin is not automatically thematically red. This isn't thematically red. Or even mechanically red. It's just lazy. 

You know what happens when you search for multicolored goblins? This. What makes these designs interesting? Hybrid mana cards (Hobgoblin Dragoon) live in the mechanical overlap of those colors. This is also true of many of the multicolored cards (Goblin Deathraiders, Goblin Electromancer).

Cards that has an activated ability stapled onto the card, a la Shattergang Bros? That's not required to be a goblin. Could've been a human or a giant. It works because of the thematic space goblins have carved out but it's not required by any means-but again, thematically because of the destructive nature of goblins and the activated abilities, it works.

Even weird cards like Razorfin Hunter make sense, seen through the lens of time, when blue had pingers. Hell, as weird as Goblin Legionnaire is, the sacrifice notion fits both colors but it's pretty clearly 'we stapled this on'. The ones that stick out the most as being the least well executed are the 'wedge' goblins like Ponyback Brigade (black's token making abilities are pretty narrow) and Ankle Shanker which is just borrowing two abilities from the opposing colors.

But they aren't lazy. You can see the argument for making them what they are. Even if you have to dig into the overall world design to get there, as with the wedge goblins.

Of the things I read, the Trinisphere direction seemed interesting. Two mana land destruction is wrong-or would have to come with such a severe drawback that attaching it to a creature seems pointless. Making a 3 mana goblin with Trinisphere's ability seems like it could work-a 3/3 for 3 that makes everything cost at least 3 could be a bonkers rare card.

However, WotC has said that they're looking for ways to expand Red's themes and land destruction is one of those themes. But land destruction is terrible from a gameplay perspective, so they've been trying to rejigger the theme to one that is more conducive to good Magic. Chandra's Revolution would be the latest spin on that theme, though I see this idea starting with Solfatara and Turf Wound.

I can envision something along the lines of:

Mickey, Noisy Goblin 1R
Legendary
Menace
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, tap target land they control.
2/2

Making the goblin legendary means that you can't just lock your opponent out of the game by playing two of them by turn three. It puts a tax on their spells but not a crazy one. Menace seems more thematically appropriate than other red abilities-if the concept is that the goblin is just so loud that it disrupts the opponent's ability to concentrate, then it isn't a far reach to say that noise is scaring creatures away from blocking it solo.

But I had a WEEK to think about this design. For a rare. That might not even work!

This kind of thing is difficult and I always want to remember that.