General [Contest] Ravnica Reimagined (Entry Closed - Judging Complete!)

[Onderzeeboot]

GROUP E
Brad
Arise (When this creature dies, if it didn't have flying, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a flying counter on it.)

Spoiler: Brad's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Hack Instant Choose one — • Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn. • Remove up to three counters from target permanent.	Graceful Aviarist Creature - Human Noble Creatures you control with flying get +1/+1. Arise 1/1	Allanor, Extravagant Thief Legendary Creature - Human Noble When Allanor, Extravagant Thief enters the battlefield, each opponent loses 2 life, and you gain 2 life. Arise 4/3

Spoiler: Brad's motivation

In honor of the eve of the birth of a man who returned from the dead.

Spoiler: My thoughts

An elegant and solid mechanic, reminiscent of persist and undying. The power level of a flying counter is probably comparable to a +1/+1 counter, since evasion is so good for breaking board stalls in limited. This gives a nice frame of reference for evaluating (and designing) cards with this mechanic. We start with a card without the mechanic though, Hack. A very solid upgrade over Last Gasp, I like the additional mode. Very clean, and this occasionally acts as a Without Weakness instead of a removal spell thanks to the interaction. Common planeswalker removal too, without feeling too complex or mentioning that card type outright! Your uncommon is a nice flyer lord with a twist. It comes back as a 2/2 flyer, which is pretty gooooood for two mana. On the one hand this definitely feels a bit pushed compared to Favorable Winds and Empyrial Eagle, on the other hand WotC hasn't really pushed the boundaries here. Feels like kind of Strangleroot Geist power level, except it requires some synergy instead of just being straight up gas. Nice design! Your rare Allanor, finally, shows a different direction to take the mechanic with its etb effect. I would love to cube this card as the top end in a aggro deck, to be honest. Puts on a ton of pressure without looking outright problematic. Quite the souped up Blind Hunter! Yeah, really solid mechanic, really solid entries Brad!

Mown
Impart M (M, Exile this card from your graveyard: Target creature gains all abilities of this card while it's exiled. Impart only as a sorcery.)

Spoiler: Mown's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Wall of Prayers Creature - Wall Defender Impart 0/4	Moldhide Troll Creature - Troll Ward 2 As an additional cost to cast Moldhide Troll, discard a card. 5/5	Branch of the Chorus Creature - Dryad Lifelink When this creature dies, put a permanent card imparted on it onto the battlefield. Impart 4/4

Spoiler: Mown's motivation

(none)

Spoiler: My thoughts

This looks like sort of a cross between Train's genome and WotC's imprint. I'm curious if it was you intended for multiple imparted cards to affect the same card on the battlefield, yes or no, I'm not quite sure based on the reminder text you chose, though maybe I'm reading too much into the superficial similarity of the words impart and imprint? Anyway, I'm going to assume the answer to my question is yes, you can impart more than one card on the same creature. Obviously this is quite a broad mechanic, as there are any number of conceivable text boxes you could want to splice onto another creature, so lets look at the individual designs. You start with Wall of Prayers, a very nice roadblock, that, once dealt with, turns into a Guard Duty. Very nice, a well-designed defensive card. Your uncommon is a great synergy card, both because it can put an impart card in your yard, and because it has some innate protection thanks to ward . However, a 5/5 for 3 mana at uncommon is quite nonsense in my opinion. This card actually sort of "exists", in Mardu Outrider (I put that in quotes because it's only available on Arena), but that version is more prohibitive to cast, and doesn't have ward , and it's a rare. A beginner set rare that doesn't make any waves, sure, but 5/5 for 3 is so big in limited. Not really a fan of the beefiness, but as a synergy card it's really nice, and there's a good chance it has some cross-synergy with the Golgari keyword (whatever it is) as well, since that guild is typically graveyard focussed. Your rare, finally, is a great flavor fit for selesnya. The base stats are solid, if nothing special, but the impart ability makes it quite a hot target for other impart cards, and a hard to remove threat. Bounce and exile still work though, so this is not without answers! A good entry Mown!

PyreDream
Uproot (You may sacrifice a land as this enters the battlefield.)

Spoiler: PyreDream's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Bloodthirsty Growth Creature - Fungus Shaman Uproot When Bloodthirsty Growth enters the battlefield, search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle. If it was uprooted, create a Blood token. 1/1	Scab-Clan Brawler Creature - Human Berserker Uproot When Scab-Clan Brawler enters the battlefield, it deals damage to any target equal to the number of land cards in your graveyard. 3/2	Marauding Horde Creature - Human Berserker Uproot When Marauding Horde enters the battlefield, if it was uprooted, create three Treasure tokens. 5/5

Spoiler: PyreDream's motivation

This sounds like something worth exploring, maybe expanding on Modern Horizons' treatment of Gruul and shifting Loamy mechanics into this guild. Off the top of my head, I immediately thought of something like Rakdos' Unleash mechanic.

Spoiler: My thoughts

I wasn't entirely sure if this was an actual submission, or if you were just riffing off of others enthousiastically, but I think it meets the critera. Yes, all three of your cards have the keyword, but what I put down as your uncommon (you didn't really specify) does have definite synergy with the mechanic, but counting the number of land cards in your graveyard. I think your mechanic is a nice fit for Gruul. It's basically "what if Gruul did exploit?" The name of your common is a bit weird, and I think the uproot effect is pretty weak. Like, the base is a Farhaven Elf, which is a good limited card, but I'ld expect a bit more tan a Blood token for my trouble when that trouble is sacrificing one of my lands. Scab-Clan Brawler, on the other hand, is a very spicy card! In a fetchland environment this can easily deal high amounts of damage, and it can even go face. I could actually see something like the Modern Burn deck warping their mana base around this because it represents so much damage potential, though it's probably a bit too slow and inefficient for Legacy Burn. Crazy good card though! Your final card is pretty wild! Like, a 5/5 for 4 mana is pretty par for the course nowadays, but the fact that you can get three of that mana back immediately by sacrificing a land? Spicy! I like that this doesn't jump the curve, but you can deploy another big theat on the same turn. Exciting stuff!

GROUP E WINNER

Spoiler: Final Verdict

Who's going to be our fifth group winner? Well, once again we got three very good mechanics, and each of you has submitted a bunch of well designed cards as well, to be honest. I think the submission that needs the most tweaks to arrive at something desirable and balanced is PyreDream's uproot. Bloodthirsty Growth is a good base effect, but the uproot effect really isn't worth it, whereas Scab-Clan Brawler is probably a bit too good. Still, props for a good mechanic and showing some interesting design space around it! That leaves Brad's arise, and Mown's impart. Boy, this is a tough one! I like both of these mechanics, and the execution of both a lot... There's not much between you, and I think both mechanics play very well. Imparting a creature is as easy as putting it under a creature on the battlefield, as if it were an aura, and the possibilities are quite vast. I think I am going to advance Brad's arise, however. Your individual card designs are really good Brad, and Allanor is a card that really, really tickles me. Thank you PyreDream and Mown for your submissions as well. Really strong group!

 

[Mown]

I'll be honest I have no idea what green 3s should look like in a world where Lovestruck Beast and Pugnacious Hammerskull exists (which are admittedly rare) and green gets like Streetwise Negotiator as a 3/3 for 1G at uncommon. It's probably a bit too much tempo, but I don't think I can make that many adjustments to the stats either before the card just doesn't do what it's supposed to.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'll be honest I have no idea what green 3s should look like in a world where Lovestruck Beast and Pugnacious Hammerskull exists (which are admittedly rare) and green gets like Streetwise Negotiator as a 3/3 for 1G at uncommon. It's probably a bit too much tempo, but I don't think I can make that many adjustments to the stats either before the card just doesn't do what it's supposed to.

Had you submitted the 5/5 as a rare, I could have held it to different standards, but we've never gotten 5/5's for 3 at uncommon without a much bigger disadvantage than discarding one card. 3/3's for 2, on the other hand, do exist at uncommon. I'ld argue the two rares you name have a potentially bigger disadvantage than discarding a card as well, plus they're just stat blocks with no inherent protection. I didn't dock you many points for this though, as the design still works as a 4/4 imo.

If we're talking about what stats are appropriate for a green 3 at uncommon, there have been 15 new ones since 2022, and there's nothing even close to a 4/4 right out of the gate, though Sample Collector can get there with a few attacks provided that your graveyard is stocked. I don't think power and toughness have power crept as much as you think at this rarity

 

[Modin]

I gotta say, I was actually pretty close to this with decompose:



(I even made a GB Enchantment)

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Hello everyone! I have no real excuses for the delay, but I have been less active online and less interested in Magic lately, instead spending a bit more time on the couch watching TV with my wife, as well as playing simple games on the iPad. As usual (for me at least), my interests come and go in phases, but I apologize for not wrapping up this contest in a timely manner! Two more groups to go after this one, so buckle up!

GROUP F
LadyMapi
Experiment with X (Create a 2/2 green and blue Lizard Mutant creature token. Put an X counter on it.)

Spoiler: LadyMapi's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Capture for Study Instant Return target creature to its owner's hand. If it had any counters on it, you may put those counters on target creature.	Monstrous Research Sorcery Choose two: • Experiment with reach. • Experiment with trample. • Put two +1/+1 counters on a creature you control.	The Birthing Ooze Legendary Creature - Ooze Mutant The Birthing Ooze enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter, a flying counter, and a trample counter. : Choose a counter on The Birthing Ooze, then experiment with that counter. Activate only as a sorcery, and only once per turn. "Oh dear, it's Experiment Kraj all over again." 2/2

Spoiler: LadyMapi's motivation

Oh, right, design thoughts — Simic's thing is having a bunch of weird gribblers, and I wanted to go for a token strategy this time around (in an actual set, I imagine that most of their actual creatures are "researchers" who Experiment a bunch). Having a standard token that you get to fiddle with thanks to ability counters seemed like a fun way to achieve that, so that's what I went with.

I briefly toyed with having it be "Experiment with [X] [Y]", with the Y defining an extra creature type (with the base token just being a 2/2 mutant), but I scrapped that after realizing that, while "Experiment with Flying Fish" is goofy fun, stuff like "Experiment with Trample Lizard" or "Experiment with Reach Crab" just feel clunky and awkward. So all the mutants are lizards this time around.

I also had to think pretty hard about how big to make the tokens, especially since the "classic" simic token is a 3/3 Frog Lizard. I ultimately decided that a mechanic that makes 3/3s is really limited in terms of what you can do with it, and I wanted "throw weird mutants at people like we work at Umbrella Pharmaceuticals" to be a core part of your game plan and not a late game thing.

Spoiler: My thoughts

Heck yes, this definitely feels Simic to me! Good design notes as well. I think making the tokens 2/2 is definitely a good choice for a keyword. I think flooding an environment with 3/3's probably makes it quite hard to balance the combat, plus you're going to have to charge quite a bit more for your experiment spells. As for the designs themselves, I do have a few concerns. The first is with your common. While is the right cost for this effect, I do not think it should have been an instant, and I do not think it actually synergizes very well with your mechanic. Imagine you have a profitable attack with two creatures, one of which has a couple of +1/+1 counters on it. This being an instant means your opponent can bounce the creature with the counters, move those to one of their creatures, and then potentially block your other attacker as well. Not only does the common act more as a hoser for counter strategies, it also messes up combat math, potentially big time. Your uncommon does feel cool, but it is waaay too flexible and powerful at uncommon for only three mana. On an empty board, you can create either two 2/2's, or you can create one 4/4 (with your choice of reach or trample), and if you don't have an empty board, you can create a 2/2 of your choice and permanently buff a creature that can attack right away. I could see this at in modern era Magic, but definitely not . Design-wise, though, this does look like a fun card to play with if costed correctly. Your rare though, is certified gold. I love the throwback to Assault Zeppelin (intentional or not), and my only concern with the card is the fact that nobody is going to be pooping out 2/2 tramples, because both 2/2 flyers and 3/3 vanillas are vastly superior. Other than that though, very fun card, and a great way to end your batch!

Tavakha
Linger (When this creature dies, you may exile it if it wasn't a token. If you do, create a copy of it, except it's a 1/1 white Spirit with flying.)

Spoiler: Tavakha's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Sacrosanct Lobbyist Creature - Human Noble Linger Whenever a Spirit enters the battlefield under your control, each opponent loses 1 life, and you gain 1 life. 3/2	Join the Debtors Instant Target creature gains linger until end of turn. Destroy that creature.	Census Keeper Creature - Spirit Flying At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay . If you do, create a token copy of a Spirit creature token you control. 2/2

Spoiler: Tavakha's motivation

For this mechanic, I wanted something that was flavorfully similar to Haunt, but with (some) lower rules complexity. Since token copies with different attributes exists in Eternalize, I thought this would be fun to play around with. Since this is basically free value for every card that has it, I imagine that balancing it would be pretty hard. Perhaps it should have another cost associated with it/activate from the graveyard instead. I liked the text on Join the Debtors too much for that though, and pretty much made the mechanic to work around that text box lol

Spoiler: My thoughts

Something adjacent to the flavor of haunt, but with lower rules complexity sounds fantastic, and you are right that Eternalize showed there is a way to do complex tokens correctly. Linger looks like a really open-ended keyword that can be worked into a number of strategies. Creatures with linger offer a more resilient board state, are great with sacrifice outlets, off ways to generate value through etb effects, etc. Your cards are interesting as well. Starting with the common, I feel you could have made this a bit more intuitive by having it say "Whenever Sacrosanct Lobbyist or another Spirit ...", because right now you do have to keep in mind that it triggers on its lingering sould entering the battlefield, but it's a cute tribal effect, and probably a pretty decent pick in limited. Join the Debtors is a funny white Murder effect with a twist, reminiscent of other white removal spells of the past, such as Afterlife. Very strong flavor as well, I want to add! A neat interaction is that you can use this on one of your own linger creatures that already in deadly peril to create two 1/1 token copies of that creature. I mean, a creature leaving behind two souls if (typically) a total flavor fail, but mechanically it's very interesting Your rare feels like the weakest of the bunch, though in limited games a self-replicating card can obviously escalate a board state real quick. The interaction with linger is fun, even if it is only about simple effects like Sacrosanct Lobbyist! A lovely set of cards!

Strionic Adventurer
Proficient (Whenever this creature attacks or blocks, add one mana of any of its colors. Spend this mana only to activate abilities.)

Spoiler: Strionic Adventurer's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Scale-Mail Swordmaster Creature - Viashino Soldier Proficient : Scale-Mail Swordmaster gets +1/+0 until end of turn. 2/3	Shields Up! Sorcery Untap all creatures that attacked this turn. Put a shield counter on each of those creatures.	Battleforge Angel Creature - Angel Flying, first strike Proficient : Create a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying and vigilance that's attacking. Activate only if Battleforge Angel is attacking. 4/4

Spoiler: Strionic Adventurer's motivation

This is a really fun design prompt! I'm taking a swing at my favorite guild: Boros. These guys have an interesting record with guild mechanics. Radiance sucked bad (maybe it was good in limited? I didn't play draft at that time), Battalion was cool, Mentor was somewhere in the middle. The guild has contributed some iconic cards to the game and basically gave this color pair its identity, but their mechanics don't seem to find much life outside of their sets (unlike Surveil, Evolve, Populate, etc.) So this is my attempt to give them a mechanic that feels right for them, but could be expanded to other planes and other colors.

Spoiler: My thoughts

Proficient is a bit of a tough nut to crack for me, not gonna lie. Adding mana is definitely within red's piece of the color pie, but for white it's very rare. I think mana generation (especially on creatures) might me more common in just about every other color, so I don't know how I feel about an entire mechanic putting it in white. That said, it is a very narrow mechanic, requiring you to put the mana into activated abilities (which it looks like proficient naturally pairs with) and/or instants, so it might just work. I will say the fun of this mechanic partly comes with having multiple proficient creatures out, giving you both more mana as well as more things to spend that mana on, and it rewards attacking (a very Botos thing) in an original way. From a gameplay perspective, then, I do expect this to be fun to play with. Looking at your individual cards, I would say the Scale-Mail Swordmaster seems like it's at the right power level. It's a bit harder to cast than Fiery Hellhound, and it exchange it basically gets +1/+1 (while attacking) and you can use white mana to pump it. That said, pumping power is, again, something pretty rarely seen in white, and it's been over ten years since white last got a "fire-breathing" creature. I'm not entirely convinced. Your uncommon, though, is very nice. It just works really well with a keyword that makes you want to attack, and the use of shield counters is kinda sweet, because any of your creatures that aren't blocked can still use that shield counter to attack on a later turn without reservation. Lovely stuff Your rare... ooh your rare. It's red, but is it really though, with that activation cost? That's really pushing the boundaries on the contest rules, I will say. Ignoring that for a moment, this feels quite aggressively costed as well. I mean, a 4/4 first strike flying for is probably fairly reasonable in this day and age, but the fact that it produces another 4/4 flyer every combat is going to be super frustrating in limited at the very least. For flavor purposes, I would also definitely have costed the activated ability at , considering that you're building Serra Angels. Not that that would make it any less stifling in retail draft, of course...

GROUP F WINNER

Spoiler: Final Verdict

Again, I want to thank everybody for your submissions. For me, this wasn't the easiest group to write, but that had nothing to do with your submissions. Strionic Adventurer, you went into an adventurous direction, but I do think you stretched the boundaries of the color pie just a little bit too much for my liking. While your uncommon looks splendid, both your common and your rare have some inherent flaws. This means your submission comes last for me in this group. That leaves LadyMapi's experiment with X, and Tavakha's linger. Both are sweet mechanics, but I do think Tavakha's individual designs are a bit stronger from a card design perspective. That means that unfortunately you don't move on, LadyMapi, but I do want to say I think you captured the Simic essence well! Congratulations to Tavakha, for making it to the quarter-finals! Besides submitting some solid card designs, your cards also fit the Orzhov flavor very well. Nice work!

I hope to come back with the results for group G a little bit quicker, see you then, for the results of the penultimate group stage!

 

[LadyMapi]

Curses, my rustiness at designing cards is my undoing!

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

Jesus, M14 was ten years ago.

That would have to mean that Angelfire Crusader is even older. Like... REALLY old...

HELP! Get me off this crazy thing!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Jesus, M14 was ten years ago.

That would have to mean that Angelfire Crusader is even older. Like... REALLY old...

HELP! Get me off this crazy thing!

Hahaha, I started playing with Invasion, and was sold on it around Apocalypse, so Angelfire Crusader is still fresh in my memory, for what it's worth

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Aaaand we're back! Let's dive into group G's entries!

GROUP G
ellogeyen
Empowered (Creatures with power greater than their base power are empowered.)

Spoiler: ellogeyen's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Belt-Born Thrasher Creature - Ogre Warrior As long as Belt-Born Thrasher is empowered, it has trample. 4/2	Scab-Club Artifact - Equipment When Scab-Club enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 red Goblin creature token, then attach Scab-Club to it. Equipped creature gets +2/+0. Equip	Uhrm, Burning Tree's Hunger Legendary Creature - Centaur Shaman Whenever one or more empowered creatures you control deal combat damage to a player, draw a card. Whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. 4/4

Spoiler: ellogeyen's motivation

Creatures with power greater than their base power are empowered. All previous Gruul mechanics (can) alter a creature's base power, so this seems like a nice fit. It's very easy to make cards that synergize with empowered creatures in other guild (i.e. Simic +1/+1 counters or Izzet combat tricks).

Spoiler: My thoughts

A relatively rare mechanic (unused until relatively recently, in fact), empowered feels right at home in Gruul. I like that you identified that this works well with previous Gruul mechanics, and your common and rare showcase different interactions, which is nice. Belt-Born Thrasher is a really straightforward hybrid common. A 4/2 for 3 is marginally playable in limited, but when you're trying to get damage through, it combines really well with pump spells and equipment. A simple but excellent design! Scab-Club is... ooooo, so lovely! A 3/1 for that leaves behind a color-coded Bonesplitter? Yes please! I even think you could have gotten away with an equip cost of . After all, Scab-Club : Bonesplitter :: Ancestral Blade : Leonin Scimitar. Regardless, two great entries, time to look at the rare. Uhrm, on the surface, looks like a pretty low-powered rare. You can do better than a 4/4 for 5 mana at common, nowadays, after all. The nice thing about this card, is that you can plop it down on the board at an opportune time, and immediately have it replace itself, or better. The second effect is a small rider that self-enables the card. Not too impactful, but still nice on the side. I would have liked a little bit more oomph maybe, though I am unsure what exactly would have made this resonate more. Alternatively, shaving off a mana would also turn this into something I'ld more readily identify as powerful in the right deck, showing it's not far off. In short, really good effort ellogeyen!

Gamusino
Galvanize M (The next instant or sorcery you cast this turn cost M less to cast.)

Spoiler: Gamusino's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Mind Eruption Sorcery Exile the top two cards of your library. You may play one of those cards this turn. Galvanize	Galvanic Paralysis Instant Tap X target nonland permanents, then put a stun counter on each of them for each other instant and sorcery spell you've cast this turn.	Melek, Maze Runner Legendary Creature - Weird Wizard Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, galvanize X, where X is that spell's mana value. 2/5

Spoiler: Gamusino's motivation

I like the Izzet's storm-big spells playstyle you can get with commanders like Mizzix and I thought this could be a good way to bring it to a limited format, the ability allowing you to cast multiple and bigger spells in a single turn for those cards that care about it like the always present creature in all ravnica set that gets pumped whenever you cast an instant or sorcery.

Spoiler: My thoughts

Sort of a reverse surge, galvanize wants you to chain spells together, one of the sweetest things you can be doing in Magic. Or is that just a me thing? Anyway, this definitely is a mechanic that lends itself much more to constructed, because it's hard to ensure the required density in limited. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean this will be a more challenging mechanic to push in retail draft. Mind Eruption is first up, and it feels like the love child of Pyretic Ritual and Reckless Impulse. How good it is depends a lot on whether you are able to flip an instant or sorcery card you can cast this turn, and how much room there is for the full discount to hit. There's that thing about density again. Even if we're aiming for a 50% instant and sorcery rate (which is really hard to do in limited), you will still whiff one in four times, so I think it's most reliable use case is to try and hit a land (roughly a 67% chance with 17 lands) and use it to power out a spell from your hand a turn sooner. Looking at the aformenetioned Reckless Impulse, I wonder if you haven't dialed down the card advantage aspect of Mind Eruption too much, by both letting you to cast only one of the two exiled cards and requiring you to cast that card this turn. Regardless of my reservations, this is an intriguing design, and it does look like an auto-include for dedicated spell decks in constructed. Galvanic Paralysis, on the other hand, looks much more like a limited only spell. It's clever of you to include an X-spell, because those benefit maximally from galvanize by default, just pump up that X! I find tap spells to typically be a bit lackluster in limited (except for Sleep, hoo boy that was a bomb!) because their effects are always temporary, and seldomly allow you to win the game. That said, this particular effect has only appeared on rares, and despite having a lower floor, it has a much higher ceiling if you actually manage to chain some galvanize spells (or rituals). Looking at it from that angle, this definitely has to potential to be a... sleeper Melek, finally, looks like every Izzet player's wet dream. Holy moly this will cause some ridiculous chains. I appreciate that you didn't feel the need to add more than that one line. It's super clean, but still very powerful in the right deck. Imagine this with an Urabrask out, for example! :sweating: Yeah, on a whole, I think your mechanic can definitely be described as narrow but powerful!

Strionic Adventurer
Thrive (At the beginning of your end step, if you created a creature token this turn, create a token that's a copy of this permanent, except it doesn't have thrive.)

Spoiler: Strionic Adventurer's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Holdfast Spider Creature - Spider Holdfast Spider enters the battlefield with your choice of a vigilance counter or a reach counter on it. Thrive 2/4	Temple Enforcer Creature - Centaur Cleric Flash When Temple Enforcer enters the battlefield, you may have it fight target tapped creature. Thrive 3/3	Parallel Leaves Enchantment Whenever one or more creature tokens enter the battlefield under your control, add . You don't lose unspent green mana as steps and phases end.

Spoiler: Strionic Adventurer's motivation

My second submission is for Selesnya. These guys have actually had some incredible guild mechanics in Convoke and Populate, both of which are beautiful, clean designs with lots of space. My design wants to play in a deck that could also feature both these mechanics.

---

Brad said:
Thrive sorta scares me to go out of control as soon as you make a copy of the copy and the original and then make four more copies and then...

Strionic Adventurer's motivation answered:
LOL. It literally never occured to me that the copies would also have Thrive. That goes a little beyond my intended power level.

A redraft of the rule would read: "At the beginning of your end step, if you created a creature token this turn, create a token that's a copy of this creature, except it doesn't have Thrive."

If that turns out too weak, it could change to: "At the beginning of EACH end step, etc."

I'm also tempted to rewrite this rule to make a copy of "this permanent," so it can be applied to a broader selection of cards.

Spoiler: My thoughts

First of all, you're perfectly allowed to redraft your submission (or even design a completely different one) as long as the deadline hasn't passed yet, so I'll judge your submission on your new wording, though I'll leave it at triggering at the end of your own end step. With how common token makers are, it feels like it should be pretty easy to consistently trigger thrive. This creates a reasonable amount of runaway potential if you get to trigger multiple thrive abilities. Luckily, your change does make sure you can hit specifically the original thrive creature to stop the chain (plus it means you're no longer growing your army exponentially, definitely a good change ). Your common, Holdfast Spider, is reminiscent of Penumbra Spider. The payoff is slightly better (since the original and the token(s) can coexist), but it requires more hoops to jump through. That said, this seems really good for a common! Assuming you can trigger it (and like I noted before, I don't think thrive is that hard to trigger), this is at least 4/8 in stats for only four mana. That's... kind of problematic at common. Your uncommon has the same problem. 3/3 flash, fight is already on rate for three mana, thrive just makes it so you murder anything small, potentially repeatedly, on your opponent's side of the board while growing yours. Even if it triggers only once, you're already looking at 6/6 in stats for . With upside. Despite your nerf, it feels to me like you would have to neuter the payoffs (at least at common and uncommon) further, to a point where they probably look really bad at first glance (even if they're decent in practice) to balance around thrive, and at that point, it does kind of take the joy out of the mechanic. You picked the rare as your synergy card, and I must same the name is genious! Once again, I do think it's a bit dangerous though. At least this makes my spider senses tingle when I think of cards like Ant Queen. There's plenty of ways to generate infinite tokens on the spot with this, especially if you get to play with more than one copy of Parallel Leaves. Since the card doesn't present a threat on its own, it really asks you to abuse it in some way, and I can already hear Johnny's gears grinding. The synergy with thrive is limited though, because those tokens are created on the end step, a point in time where you can only use the mana on instants and activated abilities.

GROUP G WINNER

Spoiler: Final Verdict

Someone should pair you with an experienced designer Strionic Adventurer, because you have a great sense for exploring unorthodox spaces, but I think your execution could do with a bit more polishing. Thrive seems to have some inherent problems that I don't really know how to tackle, and your rare isn't the best synergy piece that your could have designed. For these reasons, you won't move on to the quarter finals. Next is Gamusino. I'm actually really happy with your designs. They're clean and appropriately costed, I believe, and the mechanic is interesting. Really, other than a few small nitpicks, your biggest "problem" is getting paired up against ellogeyen's empowered. Still, galvanize is great, and I'm sure there are people who would have advanced it over empowered. Personal preference means I am absolutely going to give the win to ellogeyen though. Your common and uncommon in particular, are great designs, and your rare needs only a small tweak to get there. While not particularly ground-breaking, empowered is just such a clean and good mechanic, I can't not love it. Great work, and congrats!

One more group stage to go! And then I'll think twice about ever hosting such a complex contest while planning to do an in-depth comment on each entry again

 

[Onderzeeboot]

LAST GROUP STAGE HYPE!!!

GROUP H
Nanonox
Graverob N (When this creature enters the battlefield, mill N cards, then exile N creature cards from your graveyard. If you do, create a Treasure token.)

Spoiler: Nanonox's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Greedy Excavator Creature - Human Rogue Graverob 1 1/1	Cursed Relic Artifact - Treasure When Cursed Relic enters the battlefield, discard a card, then draw a card. Artifacts you control have “: Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells you own from exile. , Sacrifice Cursed Relic: Add one mana of any color.	Body Hoarder Creature - Human Warlock Menace Graverob 2 Body Hoarder gets +1/+1 for each creature card you control in exile. 2/2

Spoiler: Nanonox's motivation

The idea was to translate graverobbing into a flavorful mechanic. You dig open the grave (mill), search the body (exile) and get some loot (Treasure). Milling and creating artifacts makes this a relatively open-ended mechanic and the designs can go in a lot of directions. The downside is that it's pretty complex (like Map tokens that have the Explore reminder text in them).

Spoiler: My thoughts

You say it's complex, but Wizard has done a lot of complex keywords in the past, and because the flavor matches the mechanics so well, I think this should be reasonably easy to play. I will say, right away, that I don't think the exiling should be mandatory, but that's an easy tweak to make. Obviously, black is the home of reanimation effects, and red too has a lot of recursion (though typically not creature-centric recursion). Forcing you to exile a juicy reanimation target is going to be feel bad 100% of the time. I also wonder if it's the right call to both mill and exile N creatures. No deck can play 100% creatures, which means higher graverob numbers are dispropoportionally harder to fulfill, while still having the same reward of a single Treasure token. On to the cards! I think your common is a great design. Obviously, in the early game it's hard to guarantee a creature card in your graveyard, but when you do hit, this is a wonderful little accellerator. It honestly feels like it's at the perfect power level. Your uncommon is a weird one. If I understand the rules correctly, this cards allows you to spend mana on creature cards cast from exile, but doesn't enable casting creature cards from exile itself. That ability would feel way beyond what's appropriate for uncommon regardless, but that does mean the most complex part of this card serves no purpose within the context of your submitted cards. Other than that, the looting is still useful to get a creature in the yard for graverob, and this does look like a decent filler card for limited. Body Hoarder, finally, looks like a real spicy design. This should often hit the battlefield as a 4/4 or more, I imagine, which is quite inimidating (ha!) for only . Despite my earlier misgivings about thrive, this looks like just enough hoops that it might be okay in modern day Magic? It's a bit strong for my liking still, though I do like the interaction between graverob and the +1/+1 rider here from a design point of view. All in all a very nice submission with one very puzzling line of text on the uncommon.

Mown
Hiding (A creature with a hiding counter on it has hexproof, first strike and can't be blocked. Remove a hiding counter from it when it deals damage or becomes the target of a spell or ability you control.)

Spoiler: Mown's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Ghost-Street Ambusher Creature - Human Assassin Ghost-Street Ambusher enters the battlefield with a hiding counter on it. Ghost-Street Ambusher gets +2/+0 while it's hiding. 2/2	Misty Infiltrator Creature - Elemental Misty Infiltrator enters the battlefield with two hiding counters on it. Whenever Misty Infiltrator deals combat damage to a player, target creature that player controls gets -3/-0 until end of turn. 2/1	Touch of the Moroii Instant Target opponent loses 3 life and you draw a card, unless that player discards a card and has you gain 3 life. Whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to an opponent, you may cast Touch of the Moroii from your graveyard.

Spoiler: Mown's motivation

Mown had no thoughts...

Spoiler: My thoughts

Your reminder text needed some cleaning up, making it a lot longer in the process. The upside of your wording is that you can do things like instants that give hiding counters, the downside is that you still need an external line of text to add hiding counters, leading to even more words. I might have been inclined to go with something like "Hiding N (CARDNAME enters the battlefield with N hiding counters on it. It has hexproof, first strike, and can't be blocked as long as it has a hiding counter on it. Remove a hiding counter from it when it deals damage or becomes the target of a spell or ability you control.)" A bit longer, but it packs the extra line into the keyword, which means you can leave off the reminder text on more complex cards. With all that out of the way, I have to say, this is a very strong keyword from a flavor perspective! Very fitting for a guild that prefers to strike from the shadows. Ghost-Street Ambusher is a good example, hitting like a truck before the opponent has a chance to react. Misty Infiltrator is not as heavy a hitter, but the debuff plays off of the first strike in a very nice way. Importantly, handing out the -3/-0 on (first strike) damage means you know how your opponent has blocked, giving you perfect information on where to apply that debuff. Great little design! And your rare, it synergizes in such a lovely way. You're almost guaranteed to connect with the opponent with hiding creatures, and adding a little I benefit or you suffer clause for only to every attack feels very black. Nifty design! All that, and we haven't even talked about natural synergies of known archetypes, like proliferate and ninjas!

LadyMapi
Worldsoul (As you cast this spell, you may tap two untapped creature tokens you control. If you do, copy this spell.)

Spoiler: LadyMapi's cards

Common	Uncommon	Rare
Moment of Song Sorcery Worldsoul Create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying. Gain 2 life.	Strength of the Worldsoul Sorcery Create two 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens, then creatures you control get +1/+1 and vigilance until end of turn.	Crashing Horncaller Creature — Elf Druid Worldsoul Creature tokens you control are 4/4 green Rhinos with trample in addition to their other colors, types, and abilities. 2/4

Spoiler: LadyMapi's motivation

OK, so I wanted to do something a little different from Selesnya's prior mechanics (aka Convoke, Populate, then Convoke again) that still felt like a token-y go wide thing. And then I remembered that Conspire exists (OK, that's a lie, Conspire is a cool mechanic I wish they would bring back). So the result is a hilariously snowball-y mechanic.

Spoiler: My thoughts

The final entry! To be honest, I'm so slow in reviewing these, that I forgot how your other submission fared, but yeah, you got a knack for designing good mechanics, and worldsoul is no different. I too love conspire, and this looks like a fine variant. Your common is a little delight, turning into quite a strong Eyes in the Skies variant if you have some tokens lying around. Two flyers and 4 life is no joke, but even the base is perfectly accetable in a worldsoul deck, since it provides one of the two tokens needed to make worldsoul work! Your uncommon is a rather generic mass pump effect, combining an unkicked Saproling Migration with Glorious Charge. My main gripes with this card are that it is neither an instant, nor does it grant haste to the tokens, meaning those two Saprolings you create look at the battlefield with a forlorn look, unable to affect it exactly exactly for as long as they're benefitting from the temporary buff. Poor Saprolings Other than that, it's of course perfectly serviceable in a go wide deck, and it immediately sets up the worldsoul trigger with the two tokens it provides, so it's certainly appropriate for your submission! The rare, finally, is very exciting. As you are undoubtedly aware of, a copy of a creature spell becomes a creature token, so if you manage to worldsoul this, the copy turns itself into a 4/4 green Rhino with trample. Super neat! All in all another strong submission!

GROUP H WINNER

Spoiler: Final Verdict

Oh man, what a round to finish on! Three excellent mechanics, but only one spot left in the quarter finals. First to fall this time is Nanonox. I think your mechanic requires the most tweaking to get it to its best place, and your uncommon puzzled me the most. We're talking splitting hairs here though. I definitely dig all the different angles this mechanic shoots for, there's lots of potential synergies to be had here, plus, you probably had the best common design! Second in this group is... Mown. I like the flavor of your mechanic, I love your designs, but I do fear hiding is on the interactive side, and it takes up a lot of real estate to make the designs work. Of all three designers, I think you had the most interesting uncommon. That means LadyMapi narrowly ekes out a win in this group. Conspiracy has historically played well, even though it didn't really have an impact in constructed, and this is a very fine tweak, spot on flavor for Selesnya. Your uncommon was a bit bland, but your common and rare more than made up for it, and I do think worldsoul would be the most fun mechanic to play with of the three mechanics (as submitted). I'm still second-guessing my judgment as we speak, so take the win while you're ahead! All three of you had interesting submissions with a lot of potential, thank you for participating!

Finally! We're getting somewhere! I expect the knock-out rounds to go a bit faster, since I already went in-depth on every mechanic, there's no need to hash everything out again. I'll be back soon! (And not Blizzard-soon, pinky promise ) For reference, here's your top 8 bracket everyone!

QF1 (A vs. B): Brad (Scrutinize) vs. TrainmasterGT (Genome)
QF2 (C vs. D): Nanonox (Eclipse) vs. ellogeyen (Collection)

QF3 (E vs. F): Brad (Arise) vs. Tavakha (Linger)
QF4 (G vs. H): ellogeyen (Empowered) vs. ???

I'll not spoil who won this last group, in case you're scrolling to this bracket before looking at the winner spoiler

 

[Mown]

Your reminder text needed some cleaning up, making it a lot longer in the process.

I'm a bit confused by this remark. It seems to have effectively communicated the intent, so why does it need to be longer? It's not rules text. (Although you incorrectly assumed it's a triggered ability, if it lost hiding while you still targeted it that would kind of ruin the point. I guess it avoids sorcery-speed interaction at least. Maybe it's more flavorful since you've "pointed" at it by then.)

It's possible I'd rather have it as "A creature with hiding" rather than "A hiding creature", but the mechanic is in practice an ability counter for an ability a creature would never have natively.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm a bit confused by this remark. It seems to have effectively communicated the intent, so why does it need to be longer? It's not rules text. (Although you incorrectly assumed it's a triggered ability, if it lost hiding while you still targeted it that would kind of ruin the point. I guess it avoids sorcery-speed interaction at least. Maybe it's more flavorful since you've "pointed" at it by then.)

While reminder text is indeed not rules text, it was definitely a bit too short hand. Your original reminder text was "A hiding creature has hexproof, first strike and can't be blocked. Remove a counter after it deals damage or you target it." This reminder text confused me, because it does not mention that a creature is no longer hidden once the counters run out and because the word 'after' isn't (yet) used in this context Magic. It also doesn't tell you to specifically remove a hiding counter in the second part, but that's a minor thing. Anyway, the sticky point is the use of 'after', because I honestly don't really know how you would word that to make it work the way you want. Using 'after', you can still interpret it as "you cast the spell, but before it resolves it loses hiding, and I kill it", so that language is ambiguous. Maybe you could do something like "Remove a hiding counter when it deals damage or as a spell or ability that targets it resolves"?

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure myself what the correct syntax is, but ultimately it doesn't really matter in the context of the contest. There were other submissions where I cleaned up the reminder text or card designs, as long as I could do so without changing the intent of the designs, and I didn't hold that against any of the participants, since the assignment was to create cool designs that met the contest criteria. Using perfect MtG syntax wasn't one of the requirements after all

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

I've been thinking about tweaks and adjustments for Thrive all year. My big limitation as a designer is my lack of practical experience with Limited (and indeed with competitive constructed formats). This makes it hard for me to get a grip on power level, because when I analyze a card I'm only thinking about "amusement use-cases" rather than "maximum advantage use-cases".

Anyway, here are a couple Thrive variants:

Number 1 (my wife's idea)
Thrive (This creature enters the battlefield with a Thrive counter on it. At the beginning of your end step, if you created a creature token this turn, remove a Thrive counter and create a token that's a copy of this creature, except it doesn't have Thrive).
-Pros: Stops the snowball effect while preserving the cool thing about the mechanic, which is creating a unique clone. Designed by my wife, therefore especially cool. Plays well with Populate and Proliferate, two mechanics that would be really fun to play together.
-Cons: Quite wordy. Not as wildly clunky as Suspend, but it's part of the same conversation.

Number 2 (basically just Populate written backwards)
Thrive (At the beginning of your end step, choose a creature token you created this turn. Create a token that's a copy of the chosen token.)
-Pros: Frees up the power level of the original creature since you don't have to worry about the copies. Uncomplicated. I feel like this could go on a 1/1 for . Am I crazy?
-Cons: Pretty far from my original vision. Not as much fun to create another 1/1 Bird as it is to create a new Holdfast Spider

Number 3 (My personal favorite)
Thrive {cost} (At the beginning of your end step, if you created a creature token this turn you may pay {cost}. If you do, create a token that's a copy of this creature, except it doesn't have Thrive.)
-Pros: Keeps the snowball effect under control. Allows for the fun clone aspect. Generates advantage in an oblique way (essentially allowing you to play a new creature without spending a card.) Creates a new control knob for the designer to adjust power level. If the card's too good, just add to the Thrive cost.
-Cons: I've seen a lot of confusion at game tables when it comes to triggered abilities with optional costs like this.

Obviously none of these are intended as late-stage amendments to my contest entry. Just musing about this mechanic and trying to figure out if there's a way to preserve the part that I like (token copies) while making it appropriate for all rarities in Limited.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

! ! ! Q U A R T E R F I N A L S ! ! !

Can you believe it! I mean, my wife isn't particularly happy with the amount of time I'm spending on judging this contest, but I assured her I'm almost done! The knockout phase should be a bit faster, buuuuut I threw in a small wrench for myself. You'll see

QUARTER FINAL ONE
It's group A versus group B, or Brad (Scrutinize) vs. TrainmasterGT (Genome).

Spoiler: Fight!

So, as a small treat to myself, and to get some gears going, I thought, why not design some cards while I talk about these submissions a little more? For the quarter finals, I will design one common for each submission that made it through! This head to head is between two mechanics that both utilize the graveyard as a resource. Let's showcase these with a personal interpretation to get a feel for the design space!

Brad	TrainmasterGT
Man-o'-Warrior Creature - Jellyfish (C) When Man-o'-Warrior enters the battlefield, return another target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Scrutinize (: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield, except it's an artifact and it loses all other card types. Exile it if it would leave the battlefield. Scrutinize only as a sorcery.) 2/2	Limber Timber Creature - Treefolk (C) Reach Reach genome (, exile this card from your graveyard: put a reach counter on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.) 2/4

WotC has explored similar design space a lot, with mechanics like flashback, unearth, and eternalize. Both of you found interesting new ways to use the graveyard though! Brad's mechanic feels a bit more versatile, but I do think TrainmasterGT's designs (see link above) were stronger by quite a lot. I think he already designed the perfect showcase common, for example. A quick look at Ikoria will tell you that overlap between cards is inevitable when using keyword counters. For example, Fully Grown, Hornbash Mentor, and Titanoth Rex all put a trample counter on something. These cards still feel different though, so I'm not too worried. I do think genome will feel a little narrower, because the keyword works the same for all cards, so this is probably a keyword that you would use more sparingly in a set. Scrutinize, like I said, is more broad. You can basically do anything with it, as long as it makes sense on both a creature and an artifact. However, my first design was a cantripping flyer, but I looked for something else because it felt a bit weird to put a keyword on the creature, since flying doesn't do anything on a noncreature artifact. Ultimately, while I think scrutinize has a bit more design space than genome, TrainmasterGT has done such an amazing job showing the breadth of his mechanic with his strong designs, that they do edge out the win here. On to the semis you go TrainmasterGT!

QUARTER FINAL TWO
It's group C versus group D, or Nanonox (Eclipse) vs. ellogeyen (Collection).

Spoiler: Fight!

This battle is between a new face-down mechanic and a zoo-keeper's fantasy. Showcase time!

Nanonox	ellogeyen
Gloomwalker Creature - Human Rogue At the beginning of your upkeep, eclipse Gloomwalker. (To eclipse a creature, turn it face down. It's a 2/2 white and black Shadow creature.) 0/1	Horned Horse Creature - Beast Horned Horse gets +2/+2 as long as it's in your collection. (Your collection consists of all creatures that don't share any creature type.) "For sale! For sale! A real unicorn!" 3/2

So, when I first evaluated eclipse, I didn't notice you put the rarities in an alternative order, so I thought your rare was your common (you can still see me err at the start of my thoughts on your cards, guess I forgot to rewrite that part ). Also, I thought I didn't understand your mechanic correctly, because surely a common can't be that good?! Honestly though? The card that formed in my head seemed like the perfect common for this keyword. The fabled 2/2 for , but in a way that looks balanced to me. Okay, maybe this should be an uncommon, but for real, this is such a simple and attractive design to me Oh, and I also found a slightly more streamlined reminder text! So, yeah, your submission already showed a few things you can do with this keyword, and I like that it's a bit deeper than it looks at first sight.

Collection is a fun little thing to build towards. Obviously you can pick and choose your collection in constructed, but the real challenge is in providing enough different creature types to build a sizeable collection in limited. However, there's also another approach, as Horned Horse shows. If you take a more common creature type, you can give it slightly above stats if you jump through the hoops. Also, in retail draft, you need to push these commons a bit, because you don't want too many copies of a single collection creature anyway, since it will overlap with itself. A fun little conundrum there!

I think my favorite of these two submissions is eclipse. It's surprisingly versatile for such a "simple" mechanic, and on second thought I think it's a lot less likely to warp a format around it than morph ever was. You can just put this effect on cost-appropriate cards, instead of having to construct a format around 3 mana 2/2's. It is close with collection, but I think that mechanic plays a bit worse in practice, because it has you constantly reevaluating your board. Yeah, Nanonox it is, congrats!

QUARTER FINAL THREE
It's group E versus group F, or Brad (Arise) vs. Tavakha (Linger).

Spoiler: Fight!

The Orzhov Showdown! I can't believe how eerily similar these are!

Brad	Tavakha
Aspirant Skyjack Creature - Human Knight Arise (When this creature dies, if it didn't have flying, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a flying counter on it.) 1/1	Indebted Guard Creature - Human Soldier Linger (When this creature dies, you may exile it if it wasn't a token. If you do, create a copy of it, except it's a 1/1 white Spirit with flying.) 1/1

See?! Okay, I cheated a bit here by creating two Doomed Traveler variants. The play patterns of these mechanics actually diverge quite a bit once you go to bigger creatures. Actually, I found I struggled a bit coming up with an exciting common for arise, since you have to take into account that the creature comes back with the same stats. For example, I'ld love for the Aspirant Skyjack to be a 3/1, but that seems way too pushed, whereas those same stats would be perfectly fine with if it had linger instead. I think I like the potential for a bigger and more exciting body up front over the (evasive) bigger body after death. I also respect that linger exiles the creature. One Unearth effect can really be a downer for an opponent who already spent two resources to deal with an arise creature. For these reasons, I'm giving the nod to Tavakha. See you in the semis!

QUARTER FINAL FOUR
It's group G versus group H, or ellogeyen (Empowered) vs. LadyMapi (Worldsoul).

Spoiler: Fight!

The last quarter final, and it's a doozy!

ellogeyen	LadyMapi
Eager Berserker Creature - Human Berserker Eager Berserker has haste as long as its empowered. (Creatures with power greater than their base power are empowered.) 3/1	Might of the Meek Instant Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Untap it. Worldsoul (As you cast this spell, you may tap two untapped creature tokens you control. If you do, copy this spell.)

Both of these mechanics were a joy to design for, and I think there is plenty of design space to be found here. Honestly, I can't really pick a favorite based on the mechanic alone, so it's down to the individual designs! LadyMapi has a sweet common and a cool rare, but the uncommon is lacking. Strength of the Worldsoul is decent in limited, but it's not particularly exciting, and the effects feel at odds with each other because the tokens do get buffed, but they can't attack (because they're summoning sick) or block (because it's a sorcery). ellogeyen has a decent common, a banger uncommon, and a somewhat lackluster rare. However, the problem with Uhrm, Burning Tree's Hunger isn't that it's unexciting, but that is doesn't feel like it brings enough oomph for the cost. This feels like it's easier to fix. Like I mentioned in the original review, lowering the cost to might already do the trick. For me, ellogeyen's worst card is better than than LadyMapi's worst card, and so is their best card. That doesn't mean I don't <3 your submission though, LadyMapi, worldsoul is a lovely ability! The win will go to ellogeyen though, congrats on the final spot in the semis!

Spoiler: Semis Matchups

The next few evenings I'm busy, but I'm looking forward to the final stretch! We'll be seeing these two matchups plus the finals in my last judging post!

SF1 (winner QF1 vs. winner QF2): TrainmasterGT (Genome) vs. Nanonox (Eclipse)!
SF2 (winner QF3 vs. winner QF4): Tavakha (Linger) vs. ellogeyen (Empowered)!

One Simic mechanic, two Orzhov mechanics, and one Gruul mechanic. Are we going to have an all Orzhov finals?! Tune in soonTM to find out!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Obviously none of these are intended as late-stage amendments to my contest entry. Just musing about this mechanic and trying to figure out if there's a way to preserve the part that I like (token copies) while making it appropriate for all rarities in Limited.

I think number 3 is my personal favorite as well, though I like number 1 as well! The additional benefit of number 3 is that you can't drop a thrive creature on curve and immediately trigger it that end step because you created a token for free this turn.

 

[Tavahka]

Well done to Brad. I really like Arise—honestly, when I saw it I felt that it was accomplishing so well what Linger was doing, but that it takes up a lot less of the complexity budget of a limited format than Linger does. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to make Linger less complicated, and Arise is definitely in the right direction I think. I wonder if the ideal mechanic is something between the two, where it utilizes, like, finality counters and also states that it’s a 1/1 spirit with flying when it has a finality counter on it or something. Something that doesn’t require the 9 unique tokens that Eternalize took up in HOU, for example.

I am honored that you have liked Linger as much as you have, Onderzeebot. For my rare, I originally designed it with Linger as well and ended up removing it shortly before submission because I 1: wanted to put the mechanic on the common, and 2: the thought of a exponentially growing threat of little blockers that could copy themselves seemed annoying to play against. That’s why it was an upkeep trigger,etc. Now I kinda understand how things like Skullclamp happen—upon rereading it now, it sure does feel powered way more down than I intended in the final submission. Oh well! We live and we learn.

This has been such a fun thread to follow. Thanks again for putting so much time and effort into this whole process. I look forward to seeing ellogeyen in the quarters! Let’s goooo!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Limber Timber
Creature - Treefolk (C)

Reach
Reach genome (, exile this card from your graveyard: put a reach counter on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.)

2/4

This is a really sweet design!

 

[Brad]

Well done to Brad. I really like Arise—honestly, when I saw it I felt that it was accomplishing so well what Linger was doing, but that it takes up a lot less of the complexity budget of a limited format than Linger does.

Something that doesn’t require the 9 unique tokens that Eternalize took up in HOU, for example.

I was thinking along the same lines for Arise being a bit better, but Onder's point about coming back as a 1/1 is interesting. Having the second body be a different size opens up some space, but having the first body be the same(ish) size has been proven to be fine, as well.

Onder, you say you wanted Lingering Skyjack to be a 3/1 for 1W, but what's wrong with a 3/1 for 2W? It's producing a second body, so the front side can be a little weakened, same as Undying.

I'm really unsure which is better, they're pretty equal to me, but I think that rewording Linger to avoid the tokens is preferable. Something like a Cursed Role token with flying. Also gives some room for shenanigans removing the counter/token or whatever.

There's certainly a lot of little tweaks and I'd be happy to play with any variant of this mechanic. I think we both came to something like this in Orzhov because it's a great fit.



On another note, my top four picks were four different mechanics than Onder's and my first place pick got eliminated round one! Goes to show you how differently people view the game.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

On another note, my top four picks were four different mechanics than Onder's and my first place pick got eliminated round one! Goes to show you how differently people view the game.

To be fair, the way I set up judging the contest means the top 4 isn't necessarily the top 4 best submissions. Heck, if the best and second-best design meet each other in the group stage, the second-best entry doesn't even make it to the quarter finals! I'm only looking for a single winner though, and this group stage / knockout stage setup is great at making the choices along the way more granular, which means I'm not overloading my brain as much trying to decide which entry I like best It also forces and enables me to articulate my thought process better. There were actually a few submissions I didn't expect to make it this far at first sight, but that really grew on me while I was writing my feedback!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

On another note, my top four picks were four different mechanics than Onder's and my first place pick got eliminated round one! Goes to show you how differently people view the game.

Out of curiosity, what were your top picks?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

! ! ! ( S E M I ) F I N A L S ! ! !

Well, turns out Balatro and my new position in the board of a local sports club and life in general claimed more time than I had initially anticipated, but I'm back for the very, very last stretch! Note that these write-ups took me a few weeks, but please enjoy my final musings, as I discover who will clinch the victory. Eyes on the prize now!

SEMI FINAL ONE
It's the winner of QF1 versus the winner of QF2, or TrainmasterGT (Genome) versus Nanonox (Eclipse).

Spoiler: Fight!

Continuing where I picked up, it's time to craft some uncommons, and see if we can push these mechanics slightly further, and increase the complexity of the designs a bit. For the semis, I will design one uncommon for each submission that made it through! Obviously I have to abide by my own contest rules, so these designs have to fill one of the missing colors, compared to their respective common designs!

TrainmasterGT	Nanonox
Cytoplast Shield Instant (U) Target creature you control gains hexproof until end of turn. Untap that creature. Hexproof genome (, exile this card from your graveyard: put a hexproof counter on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.)	Snuff the Light Instant (U) Choose one — • Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn. • Eclipse target creature. (To eclipse a creature, turn it face down. It's a 2/2 white and black Shadow creature.)

Let's go, two instants that are brimming with flavor! The closer we get to the finals, the less I find myself wanting to look at the original submissions, and the more I want to look at the potential of the mechanics. After all, if you made it to this stage, your submission was good enough to see you through a group stage and the quarterfinals. A slight change of perspective then. One thing I am noticing as I design for these mechanics myself, is that I find myself returning to the same kind of designs that TrainmasterGT submitted when creating genome cards. It might be a shortcoming of my own imagination, but I can't really see many other interesting directions to take this mechanic apart from the "creature with keyword X and that has genome X" and "spell that grants keyword X and that has genome X" designs that TrainmasterGT already submitted. I do think that's a really solid base for a keyword though, as evidenced by the strength of those original designs, and the fact that it was easy for me to design more of them! Nanonox's submission, on the other hand, may have been a bit weaker than TrainmasterGT's on the whole, but his keyword intrigues me more! Even though all you can do is turn something into a bear, which seems less flexible than having all kinds of keywords to play around with, eclipse has gotten me more excited to create cards with the mechanic than genome. While Cytoplast Shield is a fine limited trick, it's not a design I feel particularly excited about from a designer's perspective, and the same is true when I compare the common designs for these two mechanics. Contrasting with that, I just love the design tricks you can do with eclipse, like having Snuff the Light either kill a Shadow, or turn a bigger creature into one. All in all, I am going to give the edge to Nanonox here, but it's very close!

SEMI FINAL TWO
It's the winner of QF3 versus the winner of QF4, or Tavakha (Linger) versus ellogeyen (Empowered).

Spoiler: Fight!

Our second Orzhov mechanic in the semis faces the wrath of the Gruul clans. Will we get a black and white final? Showcase time!

Tavakha	ellogeyen
Spiteful Killer Creature - Human Assassin (U) When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature or planeswalker you don't control and you gain that much life. Linger (When this creature dies, you may exile it if it wasn't a token. If you do, create a copy of it, except it's a 1/1 white Spirit with flying.) 2/2	Horned Assault Instant (U) Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Then empowered creatures you control gain trample until end of turn. (Creatures with power greater than their base power are empowered.)

Two super flavorful keywords, that fit their guilds oh so well. As an aside, I think it's fun that linger is super different from eclipse. It doesn't feel like I'm having any overlap at all in the semis, despite two entries going for the same guild! I have to say, Tavakha's mechanic was a bit harder to design for than I had imagined. Linger really works best with etb effects, and for the uncommon I really was looking for something that played around with the different stat blocks you're getting on the two bodies. Maybe I was trying too hard, but simply making a superior Phyrexian Rager variant felt like reaching for the low hanging fruit. In a way, this situation feels similar to Trainmaster's genome mechanic, where you have a multitude of options, but the mechanic kind of shoehorns you into the same designs a lot of the time. For empowered I wanted to design a non-creature spell, because it's easy to think of all kinds of creature-based effects. Turns out it's really not that hard to design a noncreature spell with empowered! What I like about Horned Assault is that it embodies the spirit of Gruul. Going face is what they like to do, and giving trample on a pump spell is useless on defense, so this subtly nudges you towards a game plan that fits Gruul's philosophy. In a draft, I would pick the Spiteful Killer over Horned Assault any day, but this isn't a draft, it's a design contest. Both linger and empowered are great fits for their respective guilds, and while linger feels more inherently powerful (as double dipping on etb effects is), empowered feels like the more flexible mechanic. For that reason I'm giving the nod to empowered. Congrats ellogeyen, you saved everyone from an all Orzhov finale!

FINALS!
It's the winner of SF1 versus the winner of SF2, or [REDACTED].

Spoiler: Fight!

The moment of truth, it's all come down to this! Once again Nanonox faces a submission by ellogeyen. Will they win out again? Let's start with a final design exercise. It looks like I saved the gold guild rares for last, so this should be exciting! A nice chance to revisit some established characters, wouldn't you say

Nanonox

ellogeyen

Teysa of the Ghost Council Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (R) When Teysa of the Ghost Council enters the battlefield, eclipse all other nontoken creatures. (To eclipse a creature, turn it face down. It's a 2/2 white and black Shadow creature.) Shadows you control get +1/+1. Shadows your opponents control get -1/-1. 2/4

Ulasht, Rubblebelt Rager Legendary Creature - Hellion Hydra (R) Ulasht, Rubblebelt Rager enters the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters on it. Whenever Ulasht or another empowered creature you control dies, choose one — • Put a +1+1 counter on each empowered creature you control. (Creatures with power greater than their base power are empowered.) • Ulasht deals damage equal to its power to each opponent. 0/0

Both of these mechanics truly are a joy to design for! They're flavorful but open-ended, and I could easily design a bunch of other cards for both of them without feeling pigeon-holed. Are they really better than all the other submissions that fell by the wayside? Well, that's obviously a matter of taste and opinion, but it does feel right to me to see these two on top. Deciding on a winner, though? That's hard! Eclipse has really grown on me during the contest, as a mechanic that has so many surprisingly different avenues to explore. From slow Isamaru's to flavorful kill spells, it was a breeze to craft some super cool cards that I would love to cube with. Empowered, too, is easy to design for. I feel like I barely even scratched the surface for this keyword, since it's so flexible! Looking at both, I think eclipse is the one that surprised me the most by how much I loved it. Empowered, on the other hand, feels like the most robust mechanic of the two. It wouldn't bat an eye if WotC designed the exact same mechanic sooner than later, and despite its generic name (which makes empowered really easy to slot into other settings), it feels eminently Gruul in flavor. Knowing that these designs are so close does make me want to look back at the original submissions one final time, and I have to say, ellogeyen's designs do look more convinving than Nanonox's for all the reasons discussed in my original reviews of those submissions. I absolutely adore eclipse, but I think empowered is an absolute homerun of a submission! Congratulations ellogeyen, you are the winner of the contest!

Spoiler: Epilogue (spoilers!)

Let me end on a heartfelt sorry to Nanonox. You were very close, and I truly, truly love eclipse! Thanks to you, ellogeyen, and everybody else for entering this contest! Again, sorry to everyone for the incredibly delayed judging. I loved looking at all the designs and turning the possibilities over in my head, but I did bite of more than I could chew! o_O I'ld love to do this again sometime, but if I want to give it this level of attention, I'm very sure my wife would appreciate it if I waited a while before organizing a new contest XD

One more thing, ellogeyen, please DM me for your well-deserved prize!

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

Thank you for taking the time to run this competition, Onderzeeboot, and well done to all the participants.

I agree that empowered is a worthy winner, and am surprised to find that it exists on only two cards. Although Gruul colours are represented by these examples, it is white that is the common colour to both.

 

[safra]

I agree, congrats to everyone. Some really great stuff all through the contest.

Spoiler: And congrats to [WINNER]

Ellogeyen!! I love empowered. there's so much design space here you could return to it on ravnica, in a core set, elsewhere, and I think it could feel different every time, and that means not only is your mechanic good it's also super super super deep and that's even harder to do!

 

[ellogeyen]

Spoiler: [Redacted]

Wauw! Thanks for the kind words!

I agree that empowered is a worthy winner, and am surprised to find that it exists on only two cards. Although Gruul colours are represented by these examples, it is white that is the common colour to both.

The only reason I know of this templating is because I cube Baird, Argivian Recruiter and have seen how fun and diverse the minigame is of triggering his ability. I really hope Wizards will explore it more often!

 

[ellogeyen]

Thanks to @Onderzeeboot for organizing this event! I've won myself a lovely addition to the Stickered Cube referencing the Gruul in their bloodrushing glory