Card of the Day - Tersh, Crown City

Making duals legendary is a reasonable drawback.  This one has the added bonus of being snow, making it a pseudo-triland.

Card of the Day - Cold Denial

Card of the Day - Azorius Entrancer

Card of the Day - Tershan Border Guard

Card of the Day - Dreamscape Musings

My entry into Goblin Artisans weekly design activity. Good fun with library manipulation such as Sensei's Diving Top.

Card of the Day - Senate Speechwriter

I really like this one.  It shows how blue and white can do do similar things that are exactly opposite.

Card of the Day - Tactical Retreat

One of the things I like about this card is that it could be useful if you cast it on one of your own creatures or an opponent's creature.

Card of the Day - Plea for Knowledge

I like votes where everyone gets something.  It feels good to vote for this.

Card of the Day - Plea for Funding

I added the Otherwise at the last minute because spells that do nothing sometimes are just plain not fun at all.

Card of the Day - Senator Valkias

In my version of Ravnica, the Azorius Senate gets a lot of legendary creatures to help out with voting.  Here's the Mythic Rare.

Card of the Day - Arbiter's Gavel

Each guild has to have an artifact, right?  This should be the only card with the line "You get one more vote."

Card of the Day - Wartime Assembly

This one can get out of hand really quickly.  You might even have your opponents voting Yea on this one.

Card of the Day - Bureaucratic Protocol

It's fun to not let your opponent do anything.  Except when you're playing with friends, unless your one friend has a bunch of baddies that everyone is scared of.  Then it's fun. But not for him.

Card of the Day - Filibuster

One of the things I really like about the vote mechanic is that you don't have to win every time.  Sometimes just getting a few votes makes casting a spell worthwhile.

Yea or Nay?

As you may know, the next big set for Magic:the Gathering is the Return to Ravnica.  For those of you who weren't around the first time, the plane of Ravnica is a big city, kind of like Coruscant, but less space-y.

The city is divided into ten guilds.  Each guild is made up of two colors and its philosophy is based on the interaction between those colors.  For example: the green/white guild, Selesnya, values community, life, and peace whereas the Cult of Rakdos (black/red) are generally cruel and disgusting.

The last time we went to Ravnica, each guild has its own mechanic or keyword.  Dredge, the Golgari's keyword, is still being used to take down tournaments in eternal formats. This time each guild is going to have a different keyword, and I've been trying to independently figure out a keyword of my own for each one.

Last week we looked at how the Orzhov Syndicate uses gold to get what it needs, and yesterday's  Card of the Day was my take on the Golgari ability word. This week's keyword is for the Azorius Senate.  If you're familiar with the guild, you'll know that the Blue/White Azorius Senate makes the laws for Ravnica and they are very liberal with their use of Law Magic.  Therefore, I propose Voting.

Let's go over a few of the pitfalls before I unveil the whole thing.

In a two player game, if each player gets one vote, most times the vote is going to fail.  The solution for this is to let other Planeswalkers vote, as well.  If you have Gideon on your side, you're probably going to win.

That was the initial design.  After some thought, I decided to let legendary creatures vote, as well, for a few reasons. One, it's just unfun if you're always losing votes because your opponent is playing with (generally) more expensive cards than you.  Most legendary creatures cost less (financially) than Planeswalkers. Two, I wanted people to have to count more votes. Voting seems bad if you don't get to interact with it. Three, Commander!  This seems like a perfect mechanic for commander decks to play with.  It feels at home in a multiplayer enviroment, and when you're playing commander, everyone has at least one legendary creature to play with.

OK, so here's the wording on all vote cards that are less than rare.

(Each player gets one vote plus one vote for each Planeswalker and Legendary Creature he or she controls. Each player may choose to vote Yea or Nay.)

And, without further ado, I present Azorius Justicar, in all his extended art glory: