Weekend Art Design Challenge Review 071913—Dae-ekleN

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Here's the challenge we're reviewing today.

I almost didn't submit anything, but while Absolution Cove doesn't evoke much of a world, I do like the mood.

Aerie of Solace is cheaper (both in mana cost and life) than Bitterblossom, but also much more limited since it will only ever give you one creature each turn. Most likely, you'll either be using it to chump-block every turn in an otherwise creatureless deck, or sacrificing it for some effect. Possibly both. Very Johnny.

Reminscent of Bonds of Faith, Commune with Spirits can be used on your own creature as a 3+ card flyer factory, or as removal against an opposing threat. Neither mode is terribly strong, but the flexibility likely makes this worth considering in Limited.

Daydreaming is appealing and potentially very strong. My primary concern is the time it will add to the game. Not only does it add at least a few seconds to each shuffle (and sometimes upwards of a minute), but it specifically promotes a deck that runs as many shuffle effects as possible.
The flavor is wonderful.

Meditate is an interesting riff on rebound: You can recast the spell every turn, but you have to pay mana to do so, and choosing not to turns the option off for the rest of the game. The templates found so far are all awkward (but that doesn't mean Del Laugel couldn't find something both succinct and unambiguous) but it might be worth it for such an interesting ability. Given that repetition isn't great for the game, it may be that the effects we can pair with this keyword have to be fairly weak/conditional, to the point that the mechanic may look anemic and unappealing. I'd sure want to try some more designs out before writing meditate off, though.

Ensorcelling Memory wants you to play as many enchantments as possible. It goes from nearly unplayable to crazy good pretty fast as you focus your deck on enchantments. Assuming the otherwise-all-enchantments deck isn't too good (and it probably isn't), this might be a nice gem of a Constructed build-around.

Like Séance, Figment Conjurer gives you an effect that's worthless on its own, but has potential in the right deck. Johnny can combo it with numerous effects that care about creatures entering and/or leaving the battlefield, presumably printed in the same set. Should be 1/1 or 0/2.

You might cast Final Meditation on a utility creature you never intended to attack with anyhow, but you're probably better off with Ranger's Guile. The last ability doesn't have much to do with the first (except the flavor, which isn't terrible), but sacrificing an enchantment in order to count your enchantments will always feel bad—you don't get to count Final Meditation.

Flash certainly makes Forced Isolation stronger, but I'm not sure the spell needs (or even warrants) it. Other than that, I like this card a lot.

Glimpse of Hope is white's reverse-Smallpox. It's significantly harder to break this symmetry and justify running the card, but even if it is unplayable, there's a Goblin Test Pilot poetry to such a card's existence. Great mood.

Last Light is a cheaper, blacker Afterlife. Good mood.

Livelands Watcher is pretty weird; Not only is it a white Shade, but it counts creatures other than itself. The mood might justify the card, but I'd probably prefer to just make it a mono-white Spirit since it's so similar to Crusader of Odric.

I like Manifest as a conditional creature generator and mana sink, but I'd prefer it as a sorcery.
Curiously, you could swap Manifest's buyback with Ensorcelling Memory's mediate and vice versa without changing the heart of either card.

Moment's Peace is a good reprint for this art. It doesn't need to be uncommon (for power reasons), but certainly could be (for gameplay reasons).

I expect every white Limited deck that can run Pages Made Life would.
In Media Res is a clever twist on the Panglacial Wurm effect, though I fear it promotes even more shuffling effects.

I don't get Presence of Extinction's flavor at all. I'm also not sure why both these abilities are on one card. I'd like to see them on their own.

If the goal is to find a cost more appealing to new players than discarding a card, Secluded Songwriter isn't a great success because new/casual players hate having cards from their deck milled with a passion. Expert players will recognize this cost as a net positive (and not a small one), and that makes me wonder if it's awkward to have it on the left side of the colon. Perhaps it would just better if the effect scaled based on what you exiled. Secluded Songwriter will be a skill differentiator as expert players play it and enjoy it's benefits while new players leave it in the sideboard. Not sure if that's good for the game or bad for it—probably depends on the rest of the set.

Lovely.

Chah is intentionally exploring game technology that isn't currently possible. There are numerous physical constraints that prohibit this, but it could one day work in an all-digital or augmented-reality game environment. If we pretend for a moment that it's entirely possible now, coupling requires a decision to put a card somewhere it can't be played if drawn, but will be played if coupled, which sounds tricky. Spirit Releaser might feel more focused if it only referenced one card type.

Save a creature from certain destruction and get it back when your 1/1 dies. Sounds interesting. {W} might be an appropriate cost, but {2}{W} might too; I'd be curious to see how it plays.

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Quite a few submissions evoked an interesting/appropriate mood, but not many evoked a world. In the world of test-making, that's indication that the test was wrong; Most likely, it's just way too hard to evoke a world with a single card, at least one with relatively sparse art like this. I sure didn't have any leads on that end.