The Phantom Lancer

This is totally not Kimahri from FFX. Nope. Don't know what you're talking about.

Phantom Lancer is a hero from DotA which was originally a tribute to the feline Ronso lancer Kimahri, although they don't actually share much in common. Phantom Lancer's playstyle involves the use of illusions in both attacking and retreating.

What I wanted for this card was a way to represent the gameplay of mirror images fairly - that is, using mirror images to confuse the enemy into attacking what isn't real. The problem with Magic though, is that you will always know which creature is the actual phantom lancer, even if he flips himself face-down. (The rules for morph state that if the opponent knows the face-up side of a card that's been flipped face-down, you're not allowed to lie about what face-down card it is.)

So I went a different direction and just straight up did hexproof and unblockability tied to the illusions which, flavourfully, meant that the opponent will always hit the wrong target (murphy's law). Mechanically, I was also interested in making a variation of Invisible Stalker/True-Name Nemesis that had the same hexproof/unblockability combo, but allowed more interactability.

How it works is pretty simple: If you want to block it, block all the illusions.

The card sort of just evolved naturally after I tied it to attacking illusions. I wanted the illusions to be tied to combat because it is what Phantom Lancer does, so I had the illusions come down attacking. Since they were illusions, it made sense to make them 0/1's. It's kinda cool because you don't normally see 0/1's attacking at all. But in this case, it's really flavourful to do so.

Changelog
18/7/2015 - Added 'Lancer' type to the tokens it produces. Changed 'Warrior' to 'Lancer' in creature type. Removed Enchantment from the token types.

This change means it doesn't play as nicely in an Illusion deck as before. At least Lord of the Unreal still works with its illusions. I'm honestly not sure I like this change.

6/3/2016 - Removed the Lancer condition to his last ability, so his unblockability plays better with illusions.
Art by seraphimon83
Magic the Gathering (C) Wizards of the Coast
World of Warcraft (C) Blizzard Entertainment

PS Kimahri is totally monogreen.