Artsy Fartsy: Art direction contest winners!~Congratulations to @bread-into-toast, @hiygamer and @st

Artsy Fartsy: Art direction contest winners!
~

Congratulations to @bread-into-toast, @hiygamer and @starch255​ for winning this week’s contest! This was so, so hard to choose from the selections.

@bread-into-toast​ — Shoreline Terrorizer

This is probably peak humor for what I was looking for, honestly. The mood is epic in a self-aware way, reminiscent of Sedge Scorpion without the morbidity. From a mechanical perspective, I can imagine there being, say, one or two other crabs in the set, and then this is the thing that ties them together. But even then, the death cantrip makes this a solid blocker with the ability to boost being a selling point. I think unless the as-fan of crabbiness is significantly higher than usual, you could have made the activation cost 1U, but no matter, because I get that it was going for a pseudo-serious-tribal aspect.

And it also ties into the fact that the other mortal crabs are watching this one. That’s the rub, really, the fact that this is layers of little vignettes that are self-aware of each other. On Theros, even the crabs have stories and heroes. Maybe even gods! We the humans can hold cards in our hands because we don’t have claws, which doesn’t stop us from getting a hard pinch, but anyway. Humanizing the crabs without making them ham-handedly grandiose is a total win here. And that death trigger… Is that the fact that this soldier kicked the crab in its poor little face once they got pinched, and the draw is the reward? If not, c’est la vie, and if so, that’s freakin’ hilarious. The alliteration gives that poetically humorous edge as well, so gold star there for making something prosaic without tripping over your words. I think this is as solid an entry as I could have ever hoped for!

@hiygamer​ — Innovative Pathfinder

Honestly, I didn’t expect to like the humor of so many of these cards this week. What’s great about this one, though, is the fact that the base card really could be for some epic generic art, a Tajuru Paragon-esque normal portrait, and you instead went for action. The art of exploration is filled with blood and screaming. And I think you nailed it with the flavor text, too, because that quote could be sometime before they embark upon the heist, or on the poster that the captain sent out around the port town, or a cutaway talking to the rest of the crew as the new tester is in another scene—or more! It’s an earned title, pathfinding, and a dangerous one at that. Action-packed and hilarious.

I sighed a little at the mechanics, but…this really does need to be a rare, don’t it. Drop this on turn three and your aggro deck has all the advantages in the world! Yeesh. Glad this isn’t in an environment with Stimulus Package. Is it too powerful? Nah. Is it really good? Yeah! And it’s simple. It’s simple enough to make the games want to run it and so that I don’t have anything necessarily new to add that you haven’t demonstrated. This is a clean card, and that’s one of the reasons why it’s a sure winner this week. Another dinosaur enters—and I had to double-check, because WOW, another creature period? This card’s bonkers. I wonder if it’s too much, but then, Managorger Hydra is still a thing. This card’s on par with that, IMO. Good good good stuff.

@starch255​ — Insurmountable Evidence

Mechanically, I’m worried about this card just a touch, even though its strangely unique. The problem: Turn one, Darksteel Citadel,Ornithopter,Drum, this, and then turn two your artifact count is six before your precombat main phase. My fingers corrected that to “pain phase” so that’s certainly a sign of the times. Magical christmas land, yes, but it’s not that hard. Perhaps three mana? I don’t think this would be the card that everyone wants to jam. I wouldn’t count out the weirdness of Affinity players, though.

I also wouldn’t count out the weirdness of me. I’m flabbergasted by how much this card feels strangely sad but also energetic but also disturbing but also not. Cracking a clue to escape is nice and shows that you’re in a prison of your own making, sure. Those ghost trails, though, and the time spent, and the way that time has becomes a single moment as defined by the past emphasizing the trapped feeling despite all those feelings being the result of constant motion and culmination… I feel this card. My mouth was open trying to compose my exact thoughts and feelings. And it was so, so cool to think about! Who could pull this off? What if someone got a reference using a bunch of photographs together with people dressed up as the same figure? I’m really flummoxed in the best possible way with how much you managed to scratch a particularly cool itch here. Despite the necessity for a mechanical change or five (ooh, SageplusJinnie), this card made me feel things. Unusual things! And I like that.

I’m writing this very late at night, so runners will be up when I’m conscious and the rest of the day will be writing as well. Thank you, everyone who took up the challenge this week!

— @abelzumi​