Hello and welcome back to Magic Project: Omega!

We return to making some Common creatures for the set, this time in red.

Along with the others, I went to work on making four creatures that would help define the major archetypes of the set with the fifth one being a general use creature that could be used in any strategy.

Red in ABU is all about damage and surprisingly about acceleration, in either mana or what would later be known as haste. There are also some solid creatures for the set that also happen to be iconic for the game that could make for plenty of interesting references.

As with the others, mana costs and creature types are subject to change.

Design Approach

Looking at ABU for reference, there was a lot of burn spells, which made some of the designs a little more difficult until I looked at the non-burn spell cards of the set in order to set up the archetypes better. The archetypes for red being Sacrifice, Aggro, Spellslinging, and Go Wide Aggro.

The Common creature for Sacrifice was pretty easy to make since there are plenty of sacrifice effects in Magic’s history in red that I can take from, so I wanted to make reference to an iconic creature from ABU while taking a simple sacrifice effect on a cheap creature.

The Common creature for Aggro was also pretty easy to make. There are some solid aggressive creatures in red so I decided to again make reference to not just one iconic creature from the set, but combine it with another in order to make a pretty strong aggressive creature.

The Common creature for Spellslinging was a little more tricky to come up with. I wanted to pick a creature that would definitely be able to help cast spells, but at Common there had to be some sort of downside attached to it. I ended up with a decent creature that made reference to two cards as well, although this is a little more of a tenuous reference to them if anything.

The Common creature for Go Wide Aggro was quite easy to make as well, especially since I could add in an additional typal element if I decide to make some other sets in the future. I went with a popular creature type along with a decently safe ability for a Go Wide strategy, though I could tweak it in the future to buff it a bit.

The general Common creature would help facilitate what I think a Common creature in red should be. Some strong stats and abilities while also being quite fragile for the long game.

Cards

Here are the cards I ended up with!

This is probably one of the series of cards that I feel pretty strongly about, maybe with a couple of minor tweaks to help balance things out a little bit.

Hurloon Recruit is probably the safest of the designs that I made that I think could probably be buffed by adding two +1/+1 counters on a creature instead. Being able to sacrifice it at instant speed is strong so it essentially becomes a combat trick on a body, and maybe two additional power and toughness would be better.

Shivan Whelp I think is excellent design personally since it combines the original Shivan Dragon along with Dragon Whelp to make a cheap creature that can take a lot of mana and be very strong. Shivan Dragon has been severely power crept, so having a cheap creature that has fire breathing is not an issue as a Common.

Flare Elemental is probably the design I’m most lukewarm on, especially since adding two red mana is pretty strong and the downside is not too bad. I could probably have it still add two red mana but have it deal damage to all creatures you control have it be less abusable and more risky, but I’m on the fence about that.

Goblin Infiltrator is another solid design in my opinion since it makes more bodies when it deals combat damage. I think adding a keyword may be helpful, and while I was tempted with giving it menace to help it deal combat damage, I think giving it haste may be something I’m more willing to do.

Magma Elemental as the generic creature works really well in having a solid body that can immediately attack and leave the opponents on the back foot. I could see lowering its toughness in order to balance things, but otherwise I think it is pretty solid as a generic red Common creature.

Like I said earlier, this is probably the series of cards I feel the strongest about and think with a few minor tweaks could definitely be something that sticks around for quite a while.

When we return the Magic Project: Omega, we’ll be finishing up the Common creatures by going into green and finishing them up strong.

See you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

Bluesky: @jmcasualnerd.bsky.social

Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jmcasual