Wizard of the Coasters

Coaster: A card that is better used as a drink coaster than as a game piece.

All the way back to the roots of the game, players perplexed themselves comparing Gray Ogre to Uthden Troll.

What is the point of Gray Ogre's existence? The Ogre exists only to show that Uthden Troll is a good card. How Depressing. And thus, the Ogre is relegated to coaster status, meaning its worth goes no farther than the cardboard its printed on. This is the card you put in your bike wheel spokes to make a cool noise. This is the card that you throw at your friends face when you're practicing your Gambit impersonation. And maybe, just maybe, Gray Ogre finds its way into your deck ironically, so you and your opponent can have a good chuckle just before your three mana Ogre trades with their one mana Savannah Lions, at which point your laughter is replaced with sadness.

Coasters exist for many reasons. Sometimes differences in card rarity allows a card to be strictly better than another, as in our example above. Sometimes due to card mechanics that have fallen out of favor, such as "ante". Sometimes just due to an overly conservative design that makes a card not worth its mana cost.

In any case, a coaster is sort of a waste of potential. I mean, look at that Dan Frazier art on Gray Ogre! That art deserves to unironically hit the game table.

Harnessing the Wasted Potential

I've started a little project called Old School Remix, where I take coasters and attempt to redesign them to be good cards. Sometimes I'll take a cool design that was too conservative and try to push it until it works, and other times, I'll take the design and throw it away, using the card name and art as the sole inspiration for a new design. My hope is that folks will find these card fun and print them out for use in their 93/94 decks.

These redesigns are created in the context of the 93/94 card pool, that is to say, Alpha through Fallen Empires. Mixing them with anything beyond may cause strange things to happen.

The Emotional Rollercoaster

Imagine cracking this card out of a pack.

Your eyes fixate on the whopping 10 mana cost. You didn't even realize you could fit two digits into a colorless mana symbol. This card must do something absolutely insane. Then your eyes move down to the text box. Huh. So you have to pay even more mana, and you get to pick between a few cards. You don't even 'draw' a card, since it replaces your draw. Wow. This is classic early design. This ability is so over-valuated. If you want to see how over-valuated it is, look at this later design:

Now this isn't completely apples to apples since the Lamp allows you to put the other cards on the bottom automatically, but the designs are similar enough to draw a comparison, and oh what a comparison it is.

A Lamp Worthy of Aladdin

Let's get this glow-up underway.

So we kept the iconic mana cost, because it just wouldn't be Aladdin's Lamp unless it costed 10. Our ability still costs X and requires tapping, but now we get a lot more bang for our buck. We can now draw up to three new cards, depending on our luck and how much mana we're able to sink into this thing. The limit of three cards is a reference to three wishes (although upon further investigation, the three wishes thing may not have been part of the Arabian Nights stories, but more of a western addition). The remixed Lamp resembles something more akin to a souped up Jayemdae Tome.

The Key of Suleiman

King Suleiman was said to have a mastery of spirits, and his signature card makes reference to it.

Well, sort of. The idea is that you can sacrifice Suleiman's bottle to release one of his captive spirits into the world, but this one is a tough sell. At best, it's five mana for a 5/5 flying Djinn. At worst, it's 5 mana to deal 5 damage to... yourself. Though the concept is cool, I'm going to take this in a different direction.

The True Key of Suleiman

King Suleiman is a master over the spirits known as Djinn and Efreet, and his new bottle reflects that.

The Bottle now protects you from your own Juzam Djinns and Serendib Efreets, because such spirits wouldn't dare inflict their petty wounds on Suleiman. In addition, you can produce a Djinn or Efreet from the bottle, or put it back in the bottle at will (as long as you have the mana).

A Big Slab of Metal

Bronze Tablet is an ante card, which means it's only played by masochists who have managed to find other masochists to play with.

This card allows you remove it and another card from the game, potentially changing ownership of the cards. So you can spend 10 mana to steal your opponent's Underground Sea. If they played magic on Deep Space Nine, Quark would run 4 copies in every deck.

Apply More Bronzer

This design just removes the ante element but leaves the removal element intact.

This is a pretty clean design. It's an expensive way for any deck to deal with any permanent. More expensive that Desert Twister, but allows red and black decks to answer enchantments without having to splash white or green.

That's All Folks

At least for today. Keep an eye out for more Old School Remix posts. All remixed cards are available here.

Disclaimer: This blog contains unofficial fan content permitted under Wizards of the Coast's Fan Content Policy. This content is not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC. Custom card mock-ups are created with Card Conjurer, credit to Kyle Burton(ImKyle4815).

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