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Rabrandt Razorclaw (Card)

The card that I designed based of my Final Fantasy XIV character, and specifically his (read: mine) preferred class: Dark Knight.

The first version of the card was originally printed with the art from Skyflu.

In Final Fantasy, Dark Knights tend to grow stronger and inflict more damage as they sustain injuries, and in order to guarantee that opponents would hit him, I gave him a fight ability. Vigilance and his ability to revive himself on dead represent the sturdiness and awareness necessary to serve as a tank. And with Lifelink, we complete the picture with his power to drain life from his opponents.

Eventually, I replaced the art with the Seiryuuden art, but left the card intact.

Ultimately, the deck became focused around suiting up Rabrandt as a voltron strategy. And in that capacity, I receive critique that the fight ability didn’t feel correct on a white/black card (despite the fact that it’s a red effect).

While that critique normally wouldn’t be worth acknowledging, it draw my attention to a problem I did have with the card: The amount of text on it. I wanted to try to alter the card to achieve a similar flavor with few words, and I ended up with this.

The only change I really want to make is to reword that third ability to “Pay life equal to Rabrandt’s toughness: Regenerate Rabrandt Razorclaw” so that it takes fewer words and read better, but I’m otherwise happy with this design.