Card of the Day - Coldmire Dead

Skeleman.

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 - Unearthed Bauble

Someone else just made Snowfall!  I don't know if it was independent or borrowed, but I love the mechanic. There is a Reddit post where I found it here.

Card of the Day - Crazed Wendigo

I want to tell you why I love Wendigos so much, but it's a major spoiler for the thing that caused me to love them.  Anyway, they like the cold and eating people.

Card of the Day - Chilltouch Dead

I like simple french vanilla creatures sometimes. I kind of want to make him a skeleton, but the picture is clearly a zombie.

Card of the Day - Great Snowy Owl

A lot of recent sets have had an uncommon cycle of multicolored cards, to kind of let you know how to draft that color pair. This is Frostmere's U/W entry. 

Card of the Day - Glaze

Card of the Day - Artoa Lordpine

Card of the Day - Frostbite

Card of the Day - Icicle Fury

Card of the Day - Unrelenting Malice

This card fills two roles in Frostmere.  The first thing it does is reward you for using the "Sacrifice a land" mini mechanic in the set.  The second is it punishes an opponent who is trying to mill you to death with espionage. 

Card of the Day - Eldritch Horror

This guy's first iteration was kind of boring. He had a snowfall trigger to exile a graveyard.  Also he was a 5/4.  I wanted to make him unique, so I gave him the ability "Eldritch horror can block any creature". 

I asked Reddit about a better wording and this is what they came up with.  His new P/T feels better in this color combination with his new ability. 

Card of the Day - Winter Harbinger

Here's a simple uncommon that's going to be in the next round of playtests.  For the uncommons, my first playtest will have 8 of each color, as well as 1 of each color pair as a snow hybrid and 1 of each color pair as a non-snow hybrid.  The commons had each hybrid card be snow, but the uncommons are going to work a little differently, at least in the first round of testing.  There will also be 10 artifact/colorless cards and 10 lands at uncommon for a total of 80 uncommons.

Card of the Day - Sower of Bitter Tears

Devils really like to sacrifice lands in Frostmere.  Here's one that gets you a card for each sacrificed land.

Card of the Day - Frost Sapphire

I just finished the 2nd draft of my commons for Frostmere, and I'm going to include some uncommons in the next playtest. This is one of a cycle of mana rocks.  I'm trying them at one snow mana to see how they work.

Card of the Day - Feral Yeti

Affinity is strong.  In playtesting, this guy regularly came down on turn 4.  A 4/4 with haste is a little too strong in limited on turn 4.  I added a few more mana to his cost and one less toughness so he can be more easily taken care of.

Card of the Day - Cold Denial

Card of the Day - Spiteful Brutalizer

The main antagonists of the Frostmere block are the devils that spew forth from the rift at Gargut Glacier.

Card of the Day - Mourning Sivr

Bradley Rose's plan to make a set has inspired me to finally get a whole set together instead of just individual cards.  The cards I post for a wile will be a part of Frostmere.  I'm finally getting it together.

Playtesting Frostmere - Day 2

If you're not up-to-date on my current project, you can start here. Part 2 is here.

There have been quite a few changes in the few rounds of playtesting that I've done.  This may be the most fun I've had since creating this blog. 

I'll be posting original versions of cards and then the "fixed" version, explaining the reasoning for each one.  The new versions are going to be playtested soon, and I will give a full report on those cards, as well.

First, we have our snow "tri-lands."  Since the Coldsnap duals just entered the battlefield tapped, I wanted to something a bit different.  My original version didn't have enough drawback, so I tried again.  The Legendary status creates a flavorful experience, while at the same time being enough of a drawback where this wouldn't be an automatic 4-of.  This card is also promoted to Rare on account of the Legendaryness of it.

A small change here, but a significant one.  This card, along with Disciple of Gargut, can be backbreaking.   A slight tweak is all it needs, methinks.

While I previously thought a small tweak we necessary here, after a few more rounds, it turns out that this is the 2nd most powerful card I've played with.  (The 1st most powerful is a doozy!)  The changes are numerous here.  Mana cost, power, rarity, and activation cost tweaks should make this guy a little less broken.  We will see soon enough.

Oh, Icy Excavation. This card is, by all accounts, the #1 most broken card I've played with.  Every time this card was cast, it was the end of the game.  When you pay 4 mana to draw 8 cards, there is a problem.   I changed the mana cost to make it less disgusting and hopefully that's enough.

One small tweak to make this feel more like a weird hybrid between a shock land and a fetch land.  I think it succeeds in that regard.

 Mammoth Lair is still functionally the same, with better language.  Playtesting helps you figure that stuff out, too. I modified the wording from the Hidden cards in Urza's Saga. 

  Another wording fix along with a slight toughness boost for the sake of easier math.  I also feel that this should be a common. 

Winter Bolt as a sorcery fixes is a fair trade for the ice counter.

That's all for today!  Stay tuned for the next episode of Playtesting Frostmere.