Check out some examples made by me and another judge! @loreholdlesbian made Foreshadowing, and I made the other two.
~
Foreshadowingis an amazing card in general, but also for this contest. Sagas only stick around for a short time, so you’ve got a very narrow window to resolve this, but it could be very strong. You get an instant-speed chapter ability while still getting it again at the normal time. The sagacycling (cycling also sort of counts for this contest) is also very important. It’s expensive for such a narrow tutor, but that’s in line with other instant speed uncounterable tutors. Most importantly, it means this card isn’t useless if you haven’t got your sagas out already. And the flavor, whether you cast it or cycle it, is amazing.
-
Fractured Kaleidostone is very basic. It’s another one of those fixing artifacts like Prophetic Prism, but the card draw happens much later, almost like a Terrarion. It fits the contest due to that last ability, which costs X mana to activate, only to give you back the mana you spent. It undoes itself but in a very useful way that fixes your mana. You could also argue that it being a cantrip also counts, since it gives you the card back, but that’s a stretch.
-
Glimpse of Divinity is a card I want to show off specifically to show that you can get a little silly this week. This card undoes itself, but it also only undoes itself. I designed it to combo with Boon Reflection effects and of course Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Sanguine Bond. This is a card that either does absolutely nothing or kills someone. In think there’s enough effects that care about this that the card is worth existing. If there were any fewer cards that cared about massive lifegain this card would be unprintable, but I think there’s just enough that some people would love this. And the love is important! If they just liked this card, it wouldn’t be worth it. You are allowed to make dumb Johnny cards this week, so long as it can be loved.
~
I hope this shows off some of the wider options for this week. This is a very self-indulgent contest for me, so I think it’s only fair to allow some of you to get self-indulgent as well.
If you have a card already, though, don’t forget to submit it >>HERE<<.
A fun thing to do (and you may see these on YouTube a bunch) is show people who have never played magic some of the most powerful cards in the game and ask them if they think it’s broken or not. A lot of the time, the ones that trip people up are the ones that’s don’t do anything. Not the ones that do nothing, but the ones who do something and then just undo it. A card that gets rid of a creature then puts it back. A card that costs mana then gives you back mana. What’s the point of it all? Well, the point is that undoing something is powerful, even if the only thing you’re undoing is yourself.
This week’s challenge: create a card that undoes itself in some way.
Mandatory: the card must either have an effect that it then undoes (for example, cloudshift) or undoes something inherent to casting it (for example, the urza’s block cards that untap the lands you tapped to cast them). Cards that have a temporary effect like act of treasons are not allowed, it has to specifically do something then undo it. It can still do other things (like those urza’s cards that have effects beyond untapping). It also doesn’t have to undoexactly what it’s doing, so long as it feels mechanically linked (for example, Nahiri’s Lithoforming sacrifices lands then lets you replay lands, even though they’d be different lands).
Encouraged: I’m most interested in cards where the text is primarily focused on the undoing or where it is the focus of the card. I’m also really excited to see things that have not been explored before in the realm of undoing.
Optional: While spells are probably the obvious route, you can make permanents. Merciless Executioner, for example, makes a creature then loses you a creature. I will also allow activated abilities that undo themselves, like Goblin Engineer’s second ability. Because people might interpret this prompt very differently, I’m going to be very broad in what I accept, so long as I can at least see where you were coming from.
Warning: Famously cards like these tend to be very broken, despite the fact that they kind of do nothing. Maybe err on the side of caution when costing these, especially if it does something new. I will try and give the benefit of the doubt, though, and judge more on whether the design is interesting and cool rather than correctly balanced.
This is a contest I’ve been wanting to do basically since I became a judge, so I’m glad I finally got around to it. I’m so curious what people are going to do and I’m very excited.
If you’ve got your card all figured out, you can submit it >>HERE<< before it undoes itself. If you feel like you keep ending up back where you started, maybe seek out some help from other inventor’s fair members >>HERE<< at our discord server.
Two commentaries in one day? Oh boy, must be your birthday! Anyways, sorry for the delay folks, just came down with some nasty stuff. I’m better now! And your cards have been duly processed, evaluated, gone through a conveyor belt, and stamped with my seal of approval. He’s an actual seal and his name is Henry, and he demanded I give him proper credit this week. Anyways, without further ado, here’s your cards!
Okay, so this is pretty similar to the judge example I did up, but what’s hilarious is that it was submitted before that post went live. I’m glad someone else had the idea of exploring Davriel’s weird stealing magic, and this is a neat way to do it. The rate here is pretty good, as well- the repeated hand attack could be nasty, but the opponent having the option is what tones it down a notch. I do wonder if it could have been a different downside than 3 life? Something more situational? As is, 3 life is always the correct option until you get really really low, at which point discarding is always the correct option. Some other downside that changes from being the better/worse option turn to turn would prove for a bit more of a play pattern. That’s not to say this card isn’t great! I quite like it, but it does highlight how difficult it can be to balance punisher effects where the opponent always has the choice.
Saheeli’s mechanical identity is so far just “artifacts”, so there was a lot of space to play around in there. Fabricate is an interesting choice to build around, and it’s an archetype that doesn’t really have a commander, so that’s definitely a neat choice. I do like that it doesn’t directly demand a focus on fabricate, though that is clearly the implication of what you’re supposed to use to build around her. However, here’s the thing: Fabricate was in the exact opposite colors as Saheeli. Apart from the two colorless ones, all of the existing fabricate cards are white, black, and green- which doesn’t give a lot of wiggle room for building a fun deck with Saheeli. Again, her abilities are generic enough that you don’t have to use fabricate with her, but it is a bit odd to see her buffing fabricate creatures, then realize that you can’t use them with her.
Huatli, Suncrowned Troubadour by @partlycloudy-partlyfuckoff
There’s something to be said about having a Huatli submission directly after a Saheeli submission (there’s a great new story out there for those who don’t know). Anyways, “Troubadour” is a great epithet to help encompass Huatli’s Warrior-Poet designation, and she sure does work with dinosaurs. The flavor isn’t crazy original, but it’s Huatli. You worked with what you had, and it came out pretty nice. I do like the aggressive play pattern that this card encourages, as well as the fact that she can come down before or after your dinos and still have the same effect. However, that second trigger, while fine on Arena, is a lot of bookkeeping and math to do in paper. You go to attack, put a counter on some things, your opponent has to re-do all their counter math, then you have to figure out what you get to put a counter on after things connect. The idea here is really solid, but I would have preferred two counters either both on attack or on damage.
I was expecting to see everyone’s favorite trickster boy this week, and you did not disappoint. The ability took me a second to grok, but once I did it become more clear. It’s an interesting one- as your mana scales, you can use each successively bigger creature to more safely swing with your earlier creatures for the turn- or play big stuff to buff Oko and get some commander damage in. It’s also fun with lots of counters, since the counters are ignored on the receiving creature, but accounted for on the creature “gifting” their power and toughness. My main complaint is… this just doesn’t feel like Oko? I kind get what you were going for with the whole forcible-shapeshifting-other-people schtick, but the card is too straightforward, and the ability feels only tangentially related to shapeshifting. I think flavor text could have brought it together a bit more, but the flavor text feels expository and doesn’t really have a narrative voice. Using a more dramatic, over-the-top declaration of the hijinks to come is more in line with Oko’s narration, and I think that would have sold this card a bit better.
If it weren’t for her card in MH2, I honestly would have no idea who this is. But yep, she sure is grixis. Just all of that nasty stuff rolled into one. This operates in the same space as her planeswalker card; in fact, since they use the same type of counter, there’s some really fun synergy here. My one complaint is that this feels a little too similar to her other card. The goaded is a nice touch, and I wish you would have followed that line through- the final ability just feels like a weird in-between of her planeswalker abilities, which, in my opinion, are already too similar to each other on their own. Also, given the corruption counters, I think a different epithet might have been suitable? However, all that aside, she definitely plays like a nasty grixis legend, and I would love to run a deck with her at the helm.
Angrath, Devoted Protector by @hiygamer**JUDGE PICK**
Aww, cow dad and his two daughters. This is definitely the most wholesome card this week, and the abilities are fun as well. I don’t think I’m totally grokking the flavor (Are the treasure tokens the money he’s making for his daughters? Is he smithing them trinkets?), but the play pattern here is really fun- keep the big-butt tokens behind as blockers (and so that they don’t die as attackers), but still get value off of them if Angrath can connect. We’ve also been missing a dedicated Minotaur tribal commander, and I think this fits the bill quite nicely, especially since you can use the treasure to ramp into Deathbellow War Cry the turn after you play Angrath, even with no other minotaurs on the field. It’s definitely a fun card, I just wish the flavor came through a bit more besides just “get value off of having minotaurs”. Maybe I’m missing something, though?
Yowza, that first ability sure is something. We haven’t seen the ability granted to an entire board before, but I feel like it’s probably worth more than four mana. However, I am sold on that second ability. It perfectly matches with the story of Wrenn’s sparking, it’s a cool in-pie (ish) ability for green, and the restriction is really clever so that you can’t just use it to let your creatures survive a nasty combat, unless your opponent also casts a spell. Honestly, if Wrenn had been a mana or two cheaper and just had that second ability, I would have been head over heels. The evasion is just too hard to evaluate, and I feel like it might be too strong as an indiscriminate buff. Definitely such a flavorful entry, though, and oh man, Wrenn’s story sure is a tearjerker.
Good ol’ deathtouch tribal gorgon. Vraska is a fun pick for this contest, and mechanically, you certainly did her justice. The deathtouch tribal is a neat way to depict her role as an Ochran assassin, which fits with her early life. I’m not totally sure where the artifact/enchantment destruction is coming from? While Vraska has the ability to destroy any nonland permanent, destroying an artifact or enchantment without the option of killing a creature feels strange, since she is an assassin. I honestly think it could have safely been target nonland permanent, maybe for one mana more. Also, I was going to question the power buff given to deathtouchers, since it would typically be useless, but granting menace alongside it to allow even a 1/1 deathtoucher to kill two creatures with one stone is very clever. Kudos for a solid card all around, but think more about the ETB and what purpose it serves in the grand scheme of the card.
Wow, this is definitely an obscure choice. The PETA of planeswalkers, Feroz had a moral objection to summoning creatures and having them fight for him. The way you’ve chosen to represent that is interesting- I get that idea that his ability is meant to more or less discourage you from playing too many creatures, but if Feroz thinks that using summoned creatures is immoral, why is he fighting them himself? It might have made more sense if that ability triggered off of an opponent’s creatures, or something along those lines. As for the second ability, I really like the theme of old characters referencing older cards, a la Garth One-Eye. However, you may want to double check the wording on Garth, just to make sure it matches. I’m also not sure why you went with serrated arrows? There are lots of artifacts to choose from in his backstory, and I get that the -1/-1 counters work with the proliferate, but it seems a bit nastier than he’s made out to be.
Hey look, it’s the character who inspired this contest! Giving Nahiri landfall may be the obvious choice, but it’s still a solid one. Digging for Equipment is also fairly in line with Nahiri, and honestly it all works out pretty nicely in terms of flavor. She is one of the best stoneforge artisans, and that shows in how easy it is for her to “create” Equipment. However, the card just feels too narrow and like it’s stretched in too many directions. She wants to be in a landfall deck to find lots of equipment, but she needs to have lots of Equipment so she doesn’t whiff, and she’s not the ideal target for that equipment so it’s not a voltron strategy, etc. I think there’s just a few too many hoops to jump through, and I think it could have been accomplished by either broadening her to care about artifacts as opposed to just Equipment, or fold her activated ability into the landfall one, and give her a different activated ability. The base is very solid, but she definitely needs a bit more focus.
You are a little too good with visceral art descriptions, my friend. I shuddered while reading this one. But yeah, tibalt sure does have a history of nasty little experiments and cruel tricks, so this fits right in. I’m gonna cut right to the punch, though- a Torban in more colors and with a broader ability is gonna be hell to play against. Torbran already had Pyrohemia, but now you can have Pestilence and friends, and the deck just sorta builds itself into “no one can have creatures but me”. Tibalt’s fragility helps, but I still do think 5 mana might be a little too low, especially since he also has a built in repeatable shock. It is a really neat concept, and a great iteration on the Torbran design, but I think it could stand to be dialled back a touch.
I do believe that is my favourite set symbol I have ever seen. Please keep using it. Giving us a glimpse of Teyo’s homeplane with its brutal diamondstorms is super cool, and a Deserts-matter theme would certainly make sense in conjunction with that. Shield counters also seem like a perfect fit, and his Wall tokens are pretty much synonymous with his character now. As an uncommon legend, he’s a solid knockout. A simple effect that can be helpful but not too strong, and a clear avenue for how to brew with him. I’m not in love with the flavor text. I like the part about his uncertainty of his natural talent, but there’s a way to do it that doesn’t sound like he’s talking to a camera. Also, geometromancy is a mouthful, don’t they just call it geometry? That aside, this card was very close to being a winner or runner up- the card is all there, the flavor text and art just needed a bit more polish.
From geometry to geomancy. At first I read his title as “Ally of the Vulshok”, and then I thought it was a pun, but nope! Alloy is just… a title that they have. I love how much this contest is getting me to learn. Anyhow, the modal ability is a neat way to represent the different abilities offered by his geomancy powers, but the first mode is a huge break. Red does not get to permanently ramp with this level of efficiency. While it can tutor for Mountains under the right conditions, it is almost always to hand and never repeatable. This allows red to explode far too quickly, which is why it tends to stick with temporary mana production. The once per turn ability helps, but even so, if you hit your regular land drops this is still very good ramp- it doesn’t even limit you to basics, and can grab it from your graveyard, too! Since the Mountain even enters untapped, it makes it unlikely that you’ll ever even use the second mode unless you have no more lands in your deck. I really like what you were going for, it’s just that first mode that needs to change. Also, don’t forget typelines!
Okay, forget the card for a second. That art? With the showcase frame? I think this is the best visual experience I’ve EVER gotten from a Magic card, real or custom. This is literally incredible. The abilities are also neat- with the Shard tokens and their planeswalker abilities, it’s clear that Niko can care about drawing cards, and the damage to attackers/blockers is both in white’s pie and feels very “I throw a javelin at them”. I like it! I do lose the thread a little with that first ability. Apart from blue’s looting, there’s not a ton of ways to discard in UW, nor do I understand the flavor that’s meant to be there. Functionally, it’s nice to recover from losing cards, but unless your opponent is playing a hand attack deck, I don’t see it coming up too much. This card would have easily catapulted to the top this week if that first ability had a different trigger that drew you a card- maybe more than one under the right conditions?
Ah yes, the teenager who doesn’t quite grasp the meaning of anarchy. He’s trying his best. Domri’s entire story is basically about his way with animals, so Beast tribal is an excellent choice. The abilities all feel in the right place, and they work together nicely, but they feel a little too linear and narrow. At least one of these abilities could have been broadened to any creatures you control- either the downside or the fight effect. As well, I get that the fighting is meant to help Beasts avoid combat, but I think there’s a more grokkable way to structure it. I’m not sure. I really like the way this card does justice to Domri, but I feel like playing it would lead to some very swingy games where you dump out a metric ton of beasties too fast for your opponents to respond, or they have slightly better creatures than you and you lose your whole board and can’t rebuild. There’s a solution here that just requires some small tweaks, but I’m honestly not sure what it is.
Our second uncommon Teyo, and I gotta say, I see the appeal. His power suite is simple and easy to riff off of without straying into mythic territory. This one is very straightforward, leaning into Teyo’s defender-tribal aspects, and it’s not bad! The token is pretty standard, and you can never go wrong with “when you do the thing, draw a card”. I also like that you limited it to once per turn to keep it in line with white’s pie. However, it feels a little odd to me that the abilities both trigger sequentially when you play Teyo. The second one just feels like… it’s too easy, I guess? I dunno. Idea: What if it was “whenever one or more creatures you control with defender block, draw a card”? A bit easier to repeat, but rewards you for doing the thing defenders want to do, and makes for a bit more of an interesting flavor. Speaking of flavor, that’s my last little nitpick here- there’s not much to go off of. No flavor text, no art direction, and the abilities are pretty generically linked to what we’ve already seen Teyo do. There’s no new information here, no fun recontextualizing of him as a character.
Alright, so this is cheating a little bit, but I wouldn’t penalize someone for doing the Kenrith twins on a card, so I won’t penalize this either. To start, though, I just want to point out that going over you card for grammar (in particular punctuation) is a good way to make sure your card not only looks smoother and more professional, but also make it easier to read. It’s something that the folks in the Discord can help with, too! On to the card: I like the dichotomy of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” that’s going on here, with Bolas doing something on a hit and Ugin doing something on a miss. That’s super cool, and the abilities match really well too! I do think the combat damage ability should be “that player”, so it’s the player that got hit who has to discard. It feels weird if I hit Steve with my commander and make you discard because of it. Also, I think the flavor text could be cut a bit shorter to make it more punchy, but I really like the general vibe of it. This card is super solid, it just needed a few rounds of review for the little details.
Xenagos sure does bring the party with him, that’s for sure. A 4 drop that half-replaces himself on the turn he comes down is nothing to sneeze at, but I thiiiiink this is just on that tightrope of pushed but not overpowered. The creature and enchantment clause doesn’t necessarily make sense for Xenagos himself, but it does for the larger Theros flavor so it definitely works there. Honestly, this is just one of those cards that I don’t have many nitpicks about. It’s a solid beater that comes down swinging and allows you to build your boardstate up even more. I think my main nitpick here is that the flavor doesn’t really offer anything that the planeswalker card didn’t- we know he revels, we know it’s violent… but what else? Some flavor text, art direction, or even a different epithet could have helped? Unless that epithet is trying to suggest that Klothys somehow orchestrated her own downfall, but that’s the kind of concept that needs some more flavor to back it up.
Once again, Tezzeret is one of those golden characters that has a clearly defined space to play in, but it’s so big that you can do so much with it. Affinity is definitely something we’ve seen aligned with him before, and it’s less dangerous on something with two pips, though still something to keep an eye out for. That second ability is scary, though. A repetitive mini-Saheeli’s Directive, especially since it continues to fuel itself more and more. It snowballs out of hand real quick, especially since Tezzy here can come down turn 2 or 3 with the right hand of cheerios and/or mana rocks. The idea is very cool, but the fact that you could reasonably hit a big whopper pretty quickly just by making some clues here and there makes this a little too fast for my comfort level.
I mean, this is a lot simpler than I expected Vivien to be, but… I like it. It inherently doesn’t really work with tokens, which is nice cause that would get out of hand fast. It’s a great way to get some crazy extra value out of playing your big beasties, and lends itself well to a voltron deck with not much effort. I’m honestly not sure where I’d rate her in terms of power. The fact that the buffs are temporary definitely limits her, but she can get really big if you’re not watching. There’s especially some tricks you can do with creatures like Ghalta, where you pay 2 mana and it’s +12/+12 for Vivien. Then again, that stuff is also pretty win-more. I like the card a lot! I think, as it is for a handful of submissions this week, I wish the flavor was more explored somehow. Yes she was a Ranger of the wilds, yes she likes big animals, but what else? What can we do with art and flavor text to show off some of her super cool (and very dark) backstory?
First off, props for the incredibly cool-sounding name for Lord Windgrace. Not someone who came to mind for this contest, but I really like this take on him. I’ll be the first to say I don’t tooootally get the flash? But I love how the rest of the card comes together so nicely. The attack trigger basically means you get to pick your blocks (kinda), and the forestwalk can situationally help you avoid your cats getting a double beatdown in a single turn by making them unblockable. Even if landwalk isn’t seen much any more, this is definitely a worthy one-off for remembrance. I do appreciate the restraint in not going the easy route of granting all your cats forestwalk, since that would be a bit more iffy. This would be super fun to stuff into a cat tribal deck and go nuts, and I really like the callback to his time as the ruler of Urborg, back before it was… you know… Urborg.
Middle of the pack is dangerous for an athlete, heh. Jokes aside, this card was unfortunately outshone by two other Niko submissions this week, but there’s still a lot to like here. The boomerang-y feel of exiling cards and “catching” them, while not super in line with the flavor of javelins, makes for an interesting gameplay pattern. One thing- is it intentional that the inspired trigger can also return the creatures Niko has O-ringed as well as the cards you exiled to do damage? If so… huh. Neat. I personally don’t agree with Niko having red in their identity, but that’s a personal preference thing so I’m gonna put it aside. I think this card had a lot of cool ideas, but unfortunately suffered from the all-too-common trap we all succumb to of “Wanting to do a lot of cool things”. This card is just… complicated, man. The attack trigger is one thing, but then choosing what to exile, and then seeing if that creature dies (immediately or sometime later), and then later on your untap step, trying to figure out if it’s more valuable to get a card back or to bounce the creature you just killed so that it doesn’t come back if Niko eats dirt, cause, y’know, 3/1 in combat. It’s just hard to wrap my head around all the pieces, which doesn’t make for a bad card at all, I just think it could stand to be simplified.
Honestly, I have almost all the same things to say about this as I do about Niko. It’s a really cool card and I like the way the abilities mesh, but man that is a LOT of choices. On your first land, you can tap something, untap something, or fight something (except you don’t know how big your creature is gonna be when you pick what it fights), and then on the second land, you get to untap or tap two things AND fight something else, along with resolving the explore triggers. I’ve played against some 30-minute-turn solitaire landfall decks before, and they would love this. It takes ages to resolve, and on the board of an indecisive person, it’ll become the #1 leading cause of baldness from pulling hair out. Again- that is not to say I dislike the card- I’m just looking at it from a perspective of “what can be cut that doesn’t lose flavor or cohesion, but makes this much easier to grok and play with?” Also, kudos on the epithet, that is a two-word description that gets in so much of her backstory.
…Wow. Finishing off this week is one of the deepest cuts possible: Grandmother Sengir. I did not even know she was a planeswalker, honestly. For those who don’t know, there’s a whole backstory that very pied-piper-esque where she learns a song that controls rats in order to kill the OG baron Sengir. It’s super messed up and great and you should read it. The flavor is perfect, too- constantly spreading Rats everywhere, and using someone’s death to get their attention again. However, I just don’t understand how she’s meant to play. The ETB/attack trigger could be political, but it’s pretty much always better to give yourself the rat since it’s not instant speed, which means the second ability does very little except give your rats menace for the turn. If you wanted to lean in that direction, I might suggest forcing you to give the rats to an opponent at first, (though giving Ravi some sort of protection from them otherwise she just dies right away), which then makes the second ability more interesting. Still a very flavorful card, just needs some minor tweaks to clarify the intention here.
Another week is behind us! Sorry again for the delay, and I’ll see you soon for another contest!
My brain goes: “Let’s do a contest about art that’s not quite what the card expects! That’s a reasonable use of art direction.” Then, I proceeded to feel philosophical about art for a while. Let’s talk about it. I had some criteria for the winners here:
Is it unexpected? There are certain aspects of Magicthat lead us to places where we understand tropes and ideas and whatnot, where we know that the angels have big wings and beautiful faces, that the burn spell will have something hot in it, etc. I think that just about everyone led to an unusual place this week—and yes, that was the goal of the contest, but considering the entries, the barrier to entry was slightly higher than the average contest.
Does it evoke an emotion of some kind? I think that this is the hardest part about creative contests, really, and where I get hung up on a lot of cards. I like to feel things. I like to feel a sense of space, of mood, of weirdness, sadness, joy, smarm. And this is an exceptionally hard quality to bring across! Something like Cling to Dust captures nuance in the expression of tormented anger, confusion, drive. Sometimes the emotions are humorous! But what makes something funny, then? Such is the interpreter’s fate.
Is it appropriate to Magic? I don’t mean appropriate with crassness or such, but rather, the feeling of Magic-ness—does the card do what it says? Does it fit a world that could be within Magic’s reach? Is it evident what this card is trying to do? What is the best faith interpretation of this card’s intent, and how close it is to reaching its full potential.
This was much discussed as a difficult contest, so in lieu of judge picks, I’m going to go through and really massage out some commentary here, get myself into folks’ heads and talk about the artistic side of things. I believe that making good cards is an art, and that we can all learn from the process. Let’s go!
Fascinating mechanical aspect here! I’m a fan of combat tricks, but a lot of heroic players might not enjoy the -1/-1 counter—not unless this set had some kind of payoff for it, and I can only imagine that it does. There aren’t a whole lot of beneficial aspects currently, not in a way that breaks the game, but I think envisioning mechanics that utilize -1/-1 counters isn’t that hard to do in a Phyrexian set. I wish it could target any creature, but that’s out of pie.
I think that the flavor text leans into the mood well enough that it would be flexible, although I’m uncertain about how the counter might translate. Part of that is the fact that you wrote the flavor text to lean into the implication that the salvation might not have been exactly what was promised. The implied “but” takes the element of surprise out somewhat. The subversion of white’s deistic relationship makes sense, sure. I feel this card could have benefitted from perhaps having no implications, like: “I bring you salvation.” as a quote. Instants usually lend themselves to action in their text. I think that a setting could have strengthened this card as well. What’s the angle? Are we supposed to lean into the betrayal, or emote with the subject being injected? The agony adds to that, yes, but… Wait, also, consider that an “unsuspecting” victim that is //currently// being injected is no longer unsuspecting. Pretty sure at that point they know what’s going on.
Overall: Enjoyable card with interesting implications, could use more focus on visuals and more subtle flavor text.
I like the way this card operates on the battlefield. I think vigilance may be too strong, but having this card as a blocker is pretty fun, and it also helps making your attacks a little more poignant on turn 4 in a more aggressive deck, y’know? Uncommons seemed to be the sweet spot for a lot of people this week, and that’s fair; simpler designs lend themselves to more flexible ways to bend the flavor. This card could do just as well in the Legion as it could on wherever this is. Plague doctors do indeed make themselves out as good images of healing and morbidity alike, even if they are a little, hm, earth-bound, as it were. IMO, anyway.
Where I’m lost here is in the connection between the name and the image. I don’t think it behooves you to have a card describing a “bloodsoaked” character without and blood in the image—and, before you say something, I don’t see how it could readily be implied either. What we have in the flavor text is an interesting frustration as well. I assume the capitalization means that this is a card supposedly on Ixalan? Okay, in that case, I’m still lost as to what exactly this card is implying. What is the relationship between the Church and the people? Is this card showing someone who has sought out the healer, or is this vampire undergoing this involuntarily? It’s not recognized, but is recognition even important here? I don’t see the conflict, and that’s the main issue. There aren’t any apparent consequences for the actions this vampire is taking for heresy, which isn’t represented here as especially heretical. I wonder if there could be something to be said for the sunbeam and the vampire, but the implications here don’t have enough evidence to support the mood I believe you’re trying to convey; following that, I’m uncertain of that mood in general.
Overall: Good limited card mired by confusing flavor and lack of thematic borderposts.
~
@deg99 — Power Trip
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you were banking on puns a little. But, that’s not especially fair, and I don’t want to dismiss the excellentart direction. The trope of the haughty emperor and the ending of the story being both “well deserved” and slightly gristly is fantastically well-done. I’m actually going to ignore the art on this one because the visual you’ve painted with words is just gorgeous. I can see the palette, the angle, the crowd’s faces, the mid-fall freeze-frame—gorgeous all around. It makes it all the more irksome that you didn’t add a comma in that flavor text between “are” and “the.”
Now, the question is, is that enough to make this card unique? I think I feel it, and I do get that emotional weight here. It’s a bit of a fairytale expression, and the fallen king does do that for me. A giant being hoisted by his own petard is expected. I think that I could see this card in a fun little aggressive build where you have a toughness-weighted board swinging in, but as a removal spell in itself it’s fantastic. What do I feel? I feel that it exists and that it should exist. I don’t necessarily feel a rush or a shock to the senses, because this does utilize tropes to get its themes across. That’s not a bad thing at all, by any means. For this contest, it’s just not especially shocking, especially when the name is a pun. Still, I can’t deny the writing skill here. Great picture!
Overall:Tropes subdue surprise, but a prosaic picture turns neat removal into strong spell.
~
@glassbass — Savior of Souls
I really like how this card exiles as a trigger instead of a replacement effect. It makes the lifegain more sensible, and it feels reactive, like this creature sees the death and comes over, which fits your mood well! The card needs to say “a creature AN opponent controls” or maybe “a creature you don’t control” to make it even simpler. I want to play this card in hatebears. Frankly, it could even be a rare, and might need to be. Or that might just be me thinking from 2009 Magic, y’know? No matter. What we have here is a strong card, a strong concept, and I like the way that you’ve made this ‘twisted forgiveness’ trope land here.
Now, after a quick search, I have to ask: is this from another fantasy property, this Larunian character-tribe-area thing? I saw a game with that name and some art, and if that’s the case, I don’t feel that that’s appropriate for this contest; it would have been more prudent to imply or create something in a looser //Magic// sense rather than use another IP. If I’m totally wrong here, then I guess all I can ask is to look stuff up before using names just in case, and no biggie? No biggie either way, but anyway, direction. You’re mmmmost of the way there. What I’d like more of is: directionality (Where’s the focus? How are the characters situated in the scene?), details (What makes this character look like a priest? Are they armed like a paladin, like a field medic, like an opulent leader? Is the fallen soldier also human?), and specificity (How are you showing this process hurting? What does ‘performing a ritual’ look like?). Getting out of the parenthetical, that last one’s a bit of a bugbear, TBH. ‘Performing a ritual’ is way too vague; the cleric could be dramatically twerking over this fallen soldier for all we know. In all seriousness, I do get what you were going for, and I feel what you’re going for, and this card’s still really great to see and I’m sure it would be good to play, too!
Overall: Strong card, could use minor tweaks—needs a major description overhaul, but the ideas are solid.
Huh. 1/3 of all submissions this week were mono-white uncommons. I wonder if that means anything. But what it also means is that this card needs to do a lotta work to stand out. … I do like it, don’t get me wrong. Let’s start with the critique, though, because I think this card’s a great example of how to bridge the last part of the gap between the expected and the unexpected. I think this card’s fantastic mechanically and the art description will be gushed about, and at the same time, the card is performing a tangible non-abstract action that isn’t relayed in the art description for me. I would have liked to see one single more detail: a student in the back being whisked away by paperwork, as if they were running after this professor with some late homework, or a new theorem, or self-insert fanfiction they want to submit for a grade. The issue is that something like Unbounded Potential has a reasonable allowance of disconnect, whereas I feel that this action doesn’t lend itself to such abstraction. Does that make sense?
Aside from that, this card’s fun as hell in every aspect. Strixhaven was a pretty non-serious set compared to a world like Kaldheim or Innistrad, and this card fits in there well. It’s funny, relatable, powerful, full of character, full of life, humorous, biting without being cruel or sadistic, and just really darn fun. That little piece of tangibility’s my only real criticism, and I want to use it more as a teaching moment, and to use THAT as an opinion that’s debatable. I think that someone could also reasonably argue that there were tangible actions with non-tangible representations that fare just as well. I believe that the physicality of in-world action should have a degree of representation on characters/objects. I also believe this secretary is going to lose all my permits and I’m gonna have to fill out more paperwork.
Overall: A design that sparks discussion, strength and humor in equal measure.
Ey, second verse, same as the first! So, let’s…talk about this one. What is the twist/subversion/surprise here? I’m thinking, okay, it’s the fact that the demon is giving the blessing. It’s not too much of a stretch, though, to assume that the demon is white-aligned. So presumably there’s a different aspect to this card, where we learn more about the demon and her place in the world. Ordinarily, I’d look to the flavor text for that.
With the art description in the flavor text, I feel lost. If this was meant to emulate the MH2 sketch cards, keep in mind those cards had finished cards on which they were based, with all the polish to carry them. I sincerely don’t understand exactly what you were looking to accomplish here, and I’m sorry there’s that disconnect, because I’m sure there was some vision here, but the choices made in the submission process to not add flavor text and to put a truncated art description below means I can’t exactly comment on this card as it stands; it feels unfinished. In the future, I’ll ask that you consider rereading the contest requirements and consider how your submission is able to fulfill those requirements.
I like rolling this name around my mouth. I really like this card in general as a strong uncommon, even if I think it could use a cantrip. I think the flavor text is pretty good, pretty normal Phyrexian vibes. I’m following your story well, too, so that’s good. As for what that story is? Huh. CAN Phyrexianization be reversed? That’s part of what I’m getting hung up on. I am unsure about the process of Phyrexianization—no, it’s rather, I’m uncertain about the process of unPhyrexianization as a punishment. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just kill them? Is there a research process involved? Now, lemme put on my fiction cap. Practicality can be pushed aside for fiction, I know, I won’t be a MagicalSins guy here. But the question is: is it a sensible punishment given the nature of Phyrexia? I would argue no.
Now, how could this be reworked, in a way? I think that it’s possible for this process to show unPhyrexianization, not as a punishment, but as a way to get Mirran spies to blend back in, or to run more torturous simulations when they have a lack of captives, or something. Pure punishment doesn’t mesh quite as well for me. That said, what an ambition, and what a way to show a new side of Phyrexia. THAT much I understand, and I see where you were coming from with the twist there, you know? I feel what you’re putting down, and I respect that. I would consider the camera and how to more clearly describe your positioning in the scene, but writing that out is indeed pretty hard. Props to you for making me think, though!
Overall: Despite a wishy-washy conceptual basis, strong card with thoughtfulness in contest criteria.
Lemme back up a second. First things first, the good. I can see the little eyes/outline and the body and the bendiness of this robot, like a Gingerbrute-y little guy. The angle emphasizing the smallness is great, and I picture that clearly. I’m having a touch of trouble seeing how to get all these elements in a single image while focusing on the construct, but I understand where you’re coming from. There’s a lot of weird rules questions to be had with the giving/taking of this dude while they’re attacking or blocking, but maybe if you couldn’t activate this ability during combat? I really like the name and the typeline. Not sure what the flavor text is referring to, not really. Is ‘he’ the driver? It doesn’t seem to add to the exact image of the card. I see the cuteness, but that specific aspect could use a little work.
I’m utterly baffled by the backstory here. I think a train/car/vehicle in a aetherpunk set like Kaladesh or a mobstery set like SNC is far different that exactly referencing the state of Arizona. This might also not have been the best week to posit something like this, because on a purely personal level, I utterly despise the hypermodern qualia of technology in contemporary Magic. Is it resonant to the game? Honestly, no. A world of magic that can craft trains and mechs and hulks and smooth cars is understandable to a point. This, to me, crosses that line. Frankly having computer chips in Neon Dynasty crossed that line for me. I want to like this card’s cuteness. I don’t think the decision-making process led you to the right conclusion for what would make the most resonant card here.
Overall: Decently cute and fun mechanical card hindered by worldbuilding issues.
Watch your effing language, captain! I saw some of the old sketches on your Tumblr, so I’m not surprised you have a good grasp on art directionality. This card’s pretty fantastic, and you know what, it’s not exactly what I was looking for for this contest but it’s close enough so that I can see exactly what YOU were thinking about. So, lemme guess, lemme make some conjecture: you imagined that on an ordinary world this card could show a big powerful demon with desecrated and spoiled land in their wake, and this card turned that more industrial. Possibly correct? And that makes sense, so you know what, it didn’t surprise or shock me, but I understand this card. That’s totally fine! I don’t think there’s any kind of editing I’d do here, besides adding reminder text to retrace. And maybe cutting down a couple adjectives, but that’s me being a pain in the butt.
Cardwise! This is just plain great, and the best part is that the Treasures you make mean that you can cast this card from your graveyard and not have to worry about missing land drops because you can make a lot of treasures. And that’s great! Even making one or two can be worth it. Gimme some artifact lifegain and we’re in business. Heh, business. No critiques, it’s a strong draft rare that’s balanced out enough. I guess that little not-quite-what-I’m-after-ism of this card’s the only thing I can really be on the fence about. I’m glad these simple designs this week are going back to their roots.
Overall:Understandable twist in a unique setting. Consider subversion, but props for overall strength.
So if someone casts a wrath, and you cast this, and the creature has an ETB trigger, that goes on the stack after the resolution of the wrath, oui? Looking at Whip of Erebos, I think this should read: “Until end of turn, if target creature would leave the battlefield, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a +1/+1 counter on it.” Weird words but it’s sensible. Why ‘additional’ there? It’s not gonna be adding anything normally, non? Regardless, this is another card that’s rubbing me up the wrong way because of the abstraction. An abstract image for a card that’s performing a physical actions feels like it doesn’t properly express what you’re trying to convey.
Am I being too weird about this distinction? I think I feel that the instants/flash cards that target is the question of what force is doing the targeting. Something like, say, Adverse Conditions is something that comes to mind. The concept of adverse conditions is abstract, but we see in the art that the conditions of the world are trapping the adventurers in this place the Eldrazi have warped. And here, what is the force that’s returning this creature? What’s the speed, the instant, the transitive aspect? I think that’s where I personally am getting hung up. That said, I love the way you wrote that, and I was reminded of Reborn Hope in a positive way. I suppose the question would be then: how do you make the art more action-oriented? I think you’re close, and looking at targeting instants could help finalize that notion.
Overall: Close on both counts—a reasonable submission that doesn’t quite latch onto the imagination but is getting there.
From above: A man is laying on a bed, his pajamas wrinkled and graying. The covers are tucked up around his armpits, and his hands are raised in frustration as if he can’t quite make fists. He’s staring with silent fury at a lovely patch of sunlight on his chest/torso from an ornate offscreen window, and a cat sits unperturbed in that patch, in the center of the card. That’s how I pictured this card, anyway. I think that it would be perfect for a Secret Lair if that’s your think. They had a cat one already, though, right? Still, like that one doggy one they did, this could be a little more domestic.
It would have to be because otherwise this card doesn’t reach me as it stands. Phasing out makes sense mechanically, and the art doesn’t exactly represent that. I feel that this is more, like, a forceful tap. Phasing is a dimensional magic in my mind, something that’s not as literal or physical as this. It’s a wonderful and adorable card, don’t get me wrong! And I love how the flavor text suggests an alternate universe where this card shows someone in an impossible prison or whatnot! And, heck, the card’s still good. I’m just comparing this to the most resonant possibilities and being a stickler. Don’t worry, I’ll be punished soon enough—the cat’s a cuddler…
Overall:Not exactly the resonance I was after, still a card with enough potential to be praised for its adorableness and humor.
I think this art is just plain good. Heck, I mean, what else is there to say? Fantastic shading and mood there. It’s almost a pun, honestly, or at least a double-twist on the word ‘reflection’ that makes sense. The roundness, the slightly offset focus on Death, the darkness of the world underneath… Nice stuff. I can’t imagine how long it took to get all the stuff in the background done, too! What would you have done for flavor text here? I think it would have been nice to have something poetic to make the art more pondering.
As for what the art does for the card, the work that you put into it does indeed make it feel like a Secret Lair, and once again, there’s nothing wrong with that. The cigarette might be something they might not want to show (I’d be snarky here about violence in MTG, but let’s be honest, an impressionable kid probably sees more people smoking than they do swords on a daily basis) but what a mood. This is a darn moody card! I think I can’t NOT like it. … Wait, mechanics! No, I like it too. Can black scry that much? Maybe not, but in limited it’s not gonna be as much of a tutor unless you’re in the lategame. If that happens, well, it’s still cray, but it’s not gonna break anything. I really appreciate you showing us all of this. I’m both proud and impressed.
Overall: A supplemental-oriented card in the best sense, with a soft evocative mood on a powerful uncommon.
~
Thank y’all so much for sharing and letting me ramble about art! Until tomorrow <3
Yeah, that’s pretty darn excellent mechanically. I think this was the closest pick to a winner, and I also think there are some changes I would have liked to see to make this card perfect. Let’s start with the good, though, because there’s a lot of it! It’s aggressive, it’s…frighteningly strong and unique mechanically, and it feels Innistrad-y to the max. I think it’s about time that Alara and I talk about my favorite plane, honestly, because there’s a close call to be made between the two. Whenever you sacrifice, add R… Wow. I want to see this played. I say this way too much, but when I get that innate urge to see a card in action, when I want to slam it on the table in the archetype, that’s a sign that you’ve done something not only correct, but stellar.
The first change I would have liked to see would’ve been some camera work and some mood. Where is the neonate in relationship to the bodies? I’m picturing a dramatic angle, but it’s hard to understand exactly what you were visualizing here. That’s a minor me-issue, as there tends to be, but I think a little bit of specificity could have helped. With the flavor text, it’s good enough and makes the nobility contrasted with the savage art direction stand out. If I’d been in the workshop, I would have perhaps suggested a quote about a “fine vintage,” something slightly shorter/snappier, and on a totally unrelated aesthetic note I would have suggested chopping the top/bottom in the MSE Mainframe in order to separate it from the bottom a little more. Super minor changes, so DW about it too much. I’m mostly just now catching up to the fact that “spending only to cast certain spells” is the perfect tie-in with someone being a snob about their blood. Ha! Bloody brilliant.
I don’t want to say that this card is trying too hard, because it’s still doing a lot right and it made me smirk. In my opinion, there’s a little too much flavor text to be as snappy as the art direction. My main criticism is that the wordiness in conjunction with the name doesn’t emphasize the strengths of the art/mechanic combo that’s carrying this card. Replacing the word “pickpocket” with “thief” or “scoundrel” or “burglar” would have added that spice; the aural qualities of the word “pickpocket” are best not reiterated. I feel like I’m explaining this a little, uh… Academically? It’s a word that takes up a lotta bandwidth in the brain-mouth and does enough in the name not to be used in the text.
Man I talked too much about that, but no matter, because it’s time for me to fawn a little over this card now. The ogre! I’m picturing him muscular because reasons. And I can see the humor in this card for sure. Is it Ravnican? Capennan? Don’t matter—it could be Fioran for all I care, and it’s flexible enough to be hilarious in all the city-esque melting pots of the world. “I’m gonna pick your pocket” is exactly what this card wants to do. A 3/3 for 4 with potential card advantage and some combat complexity is just plain hot! I think that either this was a conscious effort to do some amazing common design, or you’ve absorbed enough to fall into it, because as a draft player this card makes me just want to gush. If there’s ever an IF best-of set that uses commons and whatnot, I want this in there, because it’s just so simple but it says so much about the game. I’m not sure if I need to be as impressed as I am but I am regardless.
I feel like you poked a massive hole in this contest. Quite frankly, I don’t enjoy this card. I like it a lot, but I don’t enjoy it. Mechanically? Stellar, if a bend. Name? Raises questions and piques interest. Flavor text? Sure, I can totally dig it. The art direction. I look at it and I picture it and I’m realizing just how much this is terribly terribly right. Norn is indeed white, Vorinclex is indeed green, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong about this card being a Phyrexian powerhouse in the world and some kind of story spotlight or whatever. But it feels wrong. Why? Because it breaks preconceived notions.
Nuance is a b-word when it comes to talking about this kind of card. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this card whatsoever. And yet, green and white going together like this with this art has a quality that’s deliberately unsettling and no matter how much I say that it feels XYZ way there’s nothing objectively I can point to and say that it’s actually a break or a badness. Phyrexia was fairly popular for this contest, and yeah, it makes sense, because they’re a weirdly diverse range of antagonists that can make the holy seem profane, the natural seem regressive, the dutiful macabre. There’s the rub. I think that… Oh, huh. I think that if I had to make a critique, it would be that this contest was about emotional expectations that contrast without clashing. Subverted expectations leading to resonance is one thing, and this card causes discord. Is it bad? No. Is it wrong? Certainly not. I’d play it for sure. I think that I’m cowed by the discord, honestly, and you know what, props to you for making me realizing just how much this contest could be interpreted in different ways.
Commentary will be done this evening once I finish pie-making.
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!
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.
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!
Today,Affinity for Anime surpassed 100 followers! I think the recent spike in new subscriptions that has occurred over the past few weeks can be primarily attributed to MTGFan, who I think it’s safe to speculate has a far greater following than I do. I definitely want to extend a thanks for publishing my submissions and helping to get the word out about my blog. You’re awesome.
Also, to thank everyone for following, liking and sharing my daily creations, I’ve got an extra special one for you all today. The multi-type Planeswalker idea for this card was inspired by Mark Rosewater’s Tumblr, Blogatog and I even went the extra mile by going into Photoshop and editing the card so Simon’s hair and Kamina’s cape broke the borders. As long as you guys keep liking I’ll keep the cards coming. Thanks for 100 and here’s hoping for 100 more!
All of the way back in 2013 I envisioned dual-type planeswalkers. Six years later, Wizards has finally printed one of their own.
Splatoon 2′s final splatfest was Chaos vs Order. I did two versions of this card since the actual Magic card I’m parodying was Order and Chaos, which is white and red. However, I could modify the actual colors in MSE with gold and artifact borders to match the ink colors from the splatfest.
The Knights of the New Republic from Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens Full art (White/Black/Silver/Blood)
Rey the hero is a natural fit for White Knight. And of course, Kylo Ren is the Black Knight counterpart villain. Captain Phasma is a Silver Knight in her custom stormtrooper armor. Finn is the only one who requires a bit more explanation. See those three streaks on his helmet? Those of you who have seen Episode VII will understand why I’ve chosen him to be the representative for Blood Knight.
I also really like how each has protection from the color of his or her rival–Rey vs Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma vs Finn.
