Cool! It's a Generals: Remixed!

Those lovely guys over on Commandercast have put together a Generals Remixed contest.

Here's the skinny:

Have you ever looked at a Legendary Creature while looking for a general and thought, "Cool, but..."

° It has good flavour, but it's weaksauce rules-wise.

° It has amazing art but nothing else going for it.

° It has nice abilities, but it's incredibly boring flavour-wise.

° It has abilities that just aren't interesting enough.

° It matches the colour combination you want, but not anything else.

° It just seems to be lacking that... something.

Then this is the contest for you!

We want you to take a potential general and spice it up. Switch things around. Remix it, so to speak. The goal in this contest is to take an existing Legendary Creature card and modify it with the following goals:

° Retain the original things that feel good about the card, like it's flavour, colour combination or rules.

° Discard the things that aren't so awesome and replace them with something of your own design.

° Try to keep some semblance of the card's original function. As a guideline, it should still be recognizable as the original Legendary Creature, just... cooler.

° For the purposes of the contest, you only have to worry about the card as a general in EDH.

° Producing a visual aid like a card created with Magic Set Editor will be worth extra points because the visual representation appeals to us.

Hey, that's a pretty cool idea! There's loads of times I know I wished that Thada Adel had haste but there's possibly one guy out there who needs the help more than our little merfolk: WOTC's own Ken Nagle!



Don't let the blonde fool ya'!

 Oh, you thought I was joking?

A very little known fact is that the blast unleashed from the Golgothian Sylex didn't, in fact, kill Mishra and Gix. It only killed the Phyrexian Demon. In Mishra it awoke his planeswalking spark and he was flung into the blind eternities, lost for ages until, very recently, he gained control of his planeswalking abilities and emerged here, on our own Earth, in our time to hide among us. He disguised himself by colouring his hair blonde and submitted an entry into the Great Designer Search 1 and now Ken "Mishra" Nagle works hand in hand with Mark Rosewater in shaping the future of Magic: the Gathering. You want to know how the Phyrexians got to Mirrodin? Ken/Mishra. You want to know who has been developing the infection that will take over that plane? Mishra's puppet, MaRo. And he's a little too interested in EDH for my liking. Watch out people: We're next!!

 

Would the real Ken Nagle please stand up?

But not with a lame-ass card like this one.

Ok, I get that EDH wasn't at the top of the agenda when Mishra, Artificer Prodigy was designed. In a non-singleton format, he can be extremely powerful if you can work out his casting cost requirements. That said, we haven't exactly been inundated with PT level Mishra decks. To put it very simply, one of the most iconic figures in the history of Magic: the Gathering is a bit of a dud.

In EDH terms, his ability says: "Whenever you play an artifact spell, you may shuffle your library."

Wow!

I play one of the most gifted artificers in the history of all the planes and get a 4/4 for 1UBR that occasionally allows me shuffle my library?

My flabber has been officially ghasted.

About the only thing going for him is that we have proof that Mishra's dress sense hasn't improved under his current guise as Ken Nagle. I mean, come ON! What is with the Frog-Logo overalls? And if that wasn't enough, he's rocking some X-Men geek in there too. Make up your mind, Ken/Mishra! Ridiculing a talented, planeswalking artificer with potential to be your future overlord for their dress sense is probably not a great idea, but fashion laws have been infringed and this baby needs a makeover! What are we starting with?



Frog? X-Men? GEEK OVERLOAD!!

I'm thinking How are we going to remix our friend Mishra? A wardrobe change would be an excellent start. Something like this:

Ok, I can get behind a slightly classier version of Ken/Mishra.


What can we do about that horrific text?

Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you may search your graveyard, hand, and/or library for a card with the same name as that spell and put it onto the battlefield. If you search your library this way, shuffle it.

When you make an artifact, he gets a second one for free. To be honest, that is pretty cool. Unfortunatly the highlander nature of EDH means that you can look but you won't find a second copy of the artifact in question.


Version #1:

What about making a token copy of an artifact spell? It will have the same end result but without the searching part. An obvious drawback is the potential of seeing multiple tokens in play and getting them confused but we could avoid that with the following wording:

Whenever you cast an artifact spell, exile all artifact clone tokens you control. Then put into play an artifact clone token that is a copy of that spell.

That's a neat solution, keeping the functionallity of the original card but restricting it to one token at a time. I think that players could easily live with that as there's some very nasty artifacts running about out there. Getting an extra copy of just one may be all that's needed. It can also create some tension if you make it a required trigger. If you are happy with the artifact clone in play, you're not going to want to play another artifact.


Version #2:


If I wanted it to be a basic or "boring" fix of the original card, I'd stop there but I really want to push this further. There was a bit of a tiff that started the brother's war, something about a fight over the Mightstone and the Meekstone. How about we make him a coveter and copier?:

Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you may search target opponents graveyard, hand, and/or library for a card with the same name as that spell and put it onto the battlefield. If you searched a library this way, shuffle it.

Hey, hey, hey! Buy one, get one free.... from an opponent!! "Sol Ring, steal your Sol Ring?" Advantages: it can be extremely effective stripping ubiqious artifacts from opponents hand, graveyard or library. You get to riffle through their deck to see what they are up to and, as a bonus, your general is in colours that has access to 9 or 10 cards that can subsequently remove anything nasty from their deck. Disadvantages: If they don't have one of the artifacts you are playing or it's already in play, you're a sad puppy. It's a pretty disgusting ability with a potential downside. My personal big issue is that it's not a "fun" interaction. Players don't like when you steal things directly from their decks and search effects generally take a long time to resolve. I think this one is a runner for overpowered and annoying ability of the month. Let's not go there. What else can we do that's a step up from our basic "1 copy free"?


Version #3:


If you stayed away from the stealing part but wanted to play on his ability to create some intricate pieces of artifice, you could keep the basic printed ability but change just one little thing:

Whenever you cast an artifact spell, you may search your graveyard, hand, and/or library for an artifact card with the same converted mana cost as that spell and put it onto the battlefield. If you search your library this way, shuffle it.

Yikes!! Who's been smoking the carpet? So, let me get this right: I play a Sol Ring and I get to search my library for a Sensei's Divining Top to be put into play for free? For reals? And that Pithing Needle you took ages to get rid of is back from the dead too because I've just gone and played a Skullclamp. Hey, what am I saying? SDT is going to draw all the 1cc spells we could ever need once you bounce it back to the top of our library, re-draw it and cast it again for another go round. Can you say Black Friday Discount MADNESS!? And hey, guess what, we haven't even gotten out of the 1cc spells yet.

The power-lever readings of this one are through the roof. I had better stop before things get really silly....... Ooops! Too late!


Final choice!!

So, which one will we choose for our Mishra Remixed?:
° Annoying opponent annoyer stealy stealy Ken/Mishra? Mmmmmmmm.......
° Bah-rok-en!, combo enabling, deck thinning, future EDH Overlord Ken/Mishra? Mmmmmmmmm......
° Ken/Mishra (Kenshra?) who does kinda what he's supposed to do?

Tough choice!


No, seriously, despite the insane suggestions of a demeted and twisted mind, my real remix choice is the simple, elegant solution*. BEHOLD: Kenshra!!

I'm going to finish up here with a special thanks to Ken Nagle for being such a good sport and posing for our images. Cheers Ken!

*Though, I'd play the other two in a shot!