*Judgment Day*
Time to go over all the entries in this contest. Since I allowed everyone to submit up to three designs, I've got quite a few to go over, but first I want to take a moment to outline my judging philosophy. Since this is a Design contest, I'm mostly looking for cool designs that tickle my fancy. Mana costs, wording, creature types, all these things can be tuned in the Development phase, and as such won't be front and center in my evaluations. If I do mention them, be sure they won't affect my final judgment of a card by much, if at all. Likewise, while art can make or break a concept, none of you will have commissioned an actual artist to fit a particular card idea you had in mind, so I can't place too much weight on it. As someone who cubes with custom cards, I know all too well how hard it can be to find that perfect art. In fact, I've written off ideas that I just couldn't find
any fitting art for in the past. Obviously, the entries must still meet the contest criteria, so for clarity's sake I'll repeat those here!
Design an adventure card.
* The adventure half and the creature half must not share a color.
* Both halves must have some internal synergy or interaction that would not work as a monocolor design.
* No more than three entries per person.
* Entries due on (or before) Sunday, May 1, 2022.
With that out of the way, let's get going!
*blacksmithy - Bedazzled Buccaneer*
This is a fun but dense design! You use three different keywords here, but no reminder text (four if you count Adventure itself, which also has its own reminder text).
Incidentally, you used the Ixalan set symbol for the card, but
none of the keywords are used in that set. I feel like a Masters or Commander set symbol would have been more appropriate, but considering my judging philosophy it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm not going to dock any points for either detail
I do feel that the Surveil keyword feels a bit out of place as the third keyword, since the internal synergy is obvious between Investigate and Improvise. Maybe you could have used Scry as a simpler evergreen effect to make the card a bit less dense. I am a big fan of the play patterns this card promises. Sometimes it'll be correct to not cast this turn two and instead keep open mana to play (or bluff!) a Counterspell, and crack the Clue on your opponent's end step. All in all a very cool card!
*blacksmithy - Dreamer's Door*
This is one of those designs that I don't think can survive through the Development phase.
Entomb is quite a broken card, and the adventure half of this card is an Entomb for any/card type without the downside of being able to accidentally draw the card you want to end up in your graveyard. And we haven't even talked about the incredibly souped up
Scepter of Insight half of the card! While Scepter isn't up to snuff these days (hello
Arcane Encyclopedia!), I don't think it needs a glow up of this magnitude. Needless to say, an adventure card that is both a more broken Entomb and the most efficient blue Tome in the game by a mile is a bit hard to evaluate, but if we isolate both effects and imagine them at an appropriate cost, I do like the interaction. Both sides have their own play patterns, one being mainly a combo tool I assume, the other being a card advantage machine with card selection that can pull you ahead if ever the game goes long. The fact that you can tutor then shuffle back a silver bullet, dig towards it by scrying away whatever's on top of your library, and then repeat the search by shuffling back your freshly cast silver bullet is sweet from the pilot's perspective. Things look less enticing on the other side of the table, which is why I'm pretty sure WotC doesn't print these kinds of effects at this rate in actual Magic. Repeatedly activating the scry 2 + draw ability means your opponent will basically always have the perfect foil to your plans, unless you can go under the card advantage machine, which can be pretty demotivating, I imagine. All in all it's an intriguing design, but I'm not sure it's fun for both sides of the table, and I think it's your weakest of the three.
*blacksmithy - Jinx Merchant*
The first thing I noticed is that you submitted your third proactive one mana adventure card. That makes running the adventure into the creature (or whatever permanent type happens to be there) quite easy. It's an approach WotC themselves have used on only a few designs, and I would have loved to see another approach from you. That wasn't the assignment though, which makes this nothing but a random observation
I like this design a lot, even if I'm not sure the activated ability should cost no mana to activate. Like Bedazzled Buccaneer, the adventure side allows you to power out the creature side on turn 2, but at the cost (this time) of having less tokens available to shoot down your opponent's board. This one too, gives you a way to spend 2 mana (to gain 3 life) on turn two instead, if you want to. I must say I like the flavor here as well. This is a very solid design, and I'm not quite sure if I like this or Bedazzled Buccaneer better. Great work blacksmithy!
*Modin - Ravine Gorger*
Talking about flipping the curve of the adventure and creature half, this is a great design. I think the adventure half
should be red, since white is about equal treatment, and this allows you to very easily break the symmetry in an un-white way. That's a development thing though, and the card would meet the contest criteria regardless! I like the inherent tension of destroying all nonbasic lands on an, effectively, gold card. This asks you to solve a deck construction conundrum, and one of its colors (green) naturally answers that question with its
Rampant Growth effects. All in all a lovely, balanced design that makes a lot of sense. Well done!
*Mown - Valley of Tides*
I love, love, love where you went with this design. This oozes flavor and the design is top notch. This feels like an appropriate way to reward a proper building of a deck's mana base, while also giving the player an out if the luck of the draw doesn't provide. Even if you have the correct mana, it can still be the correct play to not get greedy and play the tapland on turn 1. The adventure half, as well, rewards good gameplay, by not giving you all the information at once. I'm baffled this isn't an effect that exists, in fact. I get that
Careful Study is more straightforward, but this is an interesting variant. Switching the effects to "Discard a card, then draw two cards, then discard a card" is even more interesting, in my mind, but that's very much a development tweak as well, I feel. The only thing I dislike is that this enters untapped off of a fetch. Regardless, !
*Mown - Transient Echo*
Once again, we have a second submission that probably won't survive Development. Two
Mulldrifters for
feels a bit much, and that's far from the scariest thing you can do. The effects, however, play very nicely together. This card looks like an absolute blast to play, and will defintely start players' gears to discover the best ways to abuse it. I like that there's plenty of play to the card apart from the internal synergy as well. Sometimes a 2/1 flash for two mana is all you need to parry an attack or create some surprise extra damage potential on your opponent's end step. I do wonder whether the creature half is a good fit for mono white. Both
Nightmare Shepherd and
Body Double come to mind as adjacent designs, and that might problematic, since this means this conceivably could work as a monocolor design.
*Mown - Trisanda, Heir to Extinction*
Well, we have been talking about edict effects on the boards recently, and this is one heck of an example. There's no doubt in my mind that you started this design with the artwork, but I must say the mechanical execution given the art and the contest criteria is spectacular. For starters, the adventure half might be one of the most interesting white wrath effects we have seen in a while. Great call on making it a red token as well, despite the spell being white. Sometimes it's right to target yourself, sometimes it's a great way to set back your opponent to the stone age (or Dragon Age
). The creature half being able to target any player is great design since it gives you options! Either edict your opponent but give them cards, or edict yourself with a
Village Rites on a stick. Maybe you shouldn't be able to sac Trisanda herself, and I feel the black half should have an "If they do, they draw two cards and each opponent loses life ..." to make this playable on turn 3 if your opponent doesn't have a creature out (instead of giving them 2 cards for free or forcing you to sacrifice a creature yourself), but that sort of stuff is, again, easily sorted out in Development. Another great design!
*kModz - Contracted Pitlord*
Now this is a glow up I can get behind.
Tombstalker probably doesn't need to cost one less mana and come with a self-enabling spell attached, but it sure fits the contest criteria really well! Though it garners you no extra points, I appreciate you put in the reminder text! It shows the simplicity and strength of the design. You don't need many words to create a convincing design!
*kModz - Timely Skycaller*
Oooooh, nifty! A 4/3 flying for
is quite the rate. In all honesty, I think flying might be slightly too much of a reward to ever consider casting this on curve for
, unless you had some other way of putting a counter on it. Of course, GW typically has plenty of ways to do that, even on curve (hi there
Rishkar, Peema Renegade!), so who knows, maybe it is the correct play! Another subtle thing I like is that this isn't an auto cast adventure despite it being one mana, since you need to sequence it with a creature in the same turn. Another good design.
*kModz - Ashi, Usher of the Pale Moon*
Another design that has a greater mana value on the adventure than on the creature. I like that! This is a great on curve creature too, so it's not at all unthinkable that it is right to sequence this out before the impactful but slightly expensive adventure half. Funnily enough, despite being two mana more, this is the cheapest this effect has ever been, because it only ever appeared on commons!
With black getting more ways to deal with enchantments, it's not unthinkable that this creeps closer and closer to a design that's doable in mono black, but for now this is a fun and very playable design!
