Weekend Art ChallengeGreetings, artisans! Click through to see this weekend's art and the design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, and everyone is encouraged to give feedback. You may use that feedback to revise your submission any number of times, though only the version rendered will be included in the review, if that happens.
Either include 'tap' in your rules text or put something novel on the other side of the colon from {T}.
I will review the cards in a post next week if one or more artisans volunteer to mock up all the submissions and get them to me however.
Foreign Festival {1}{G}
ReplyDeleteEnchantment (R)
Each land has "{T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."
“Joy and merry should be available to all. The only price we ask of a city for our performance is that they open their gates for everyone.”
This was the first idea that came to my mind. I might make another more original entry, but when I saw the festival in the artwork, I immediately thought of a 'foreign exchange' style of card that gave a gift to everyone. And what better represents the exotic than mana of other colors?
DeleteI like the design idea a lot, but consider whether this might be too close to Prismatic Omen.
DeleteOh wow, I completely forgot about that design. Originally it was indeed a global land-type granter. However, I wanted this to be group hug only, and not allow people to easily LD everyone with those old-fashioned land-hate cards... so I decided to just grant the extra ability.
DeleteGiven the precedence of Doubling Season -> Primal Vigor, I think this is probably okay. Thanks for the note.
Prismatic City of Brass
DeleteLand
Lands you control have "T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."
Whenever a land you control becomes tapped, ~ deals 1 damage to you.
Arena Shanty-Town
ReplyDeleteLand (U)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
5R, T, Sacrifice Arena Shanty-Town: Target creature you control fights target creature you don’t control.
As many fights break out there as they do in the pits.
Designed as flood insurance for limited. I originally had it as colorless mana to activate, but that might be a little too good.
4R is perhaps fine since it costs the effective sixth of itself to activate.
DeleteNothing about the art really screams fight to me.
DeleteBazaar of Bizarre 5
ReplyDeleteArtifact
Tap two untapped permanents you control: Draw a card. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
At the end of your turn, discard your hand. The player with the most untapped permanents gains control of ~.
I don't exactly know where this idea came from. The image seems like it should have more people wandering around, so I went with the idea of a shady always moving market place that takes advantage of those who use it. Not sure about the mana cost or number of permanents tapped. This feels like an EDH card but I can imagine it'd be easily broken.
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DeleteI shoud change permanents in nonlands permanents (or even creatures). Otherwise you could tap lands, wicht would be wierd.
DeleteI also would drop the cost by 1 and make it 3 nonland permanents. I think that would be more fun
Agreed that it should be limited to creatures (I'm more concerned with tapping enchantments and PWs than lands, personally).
DeleteOne thing that concerns me is that, though when played it probably makes sense, the rules text is difficult to parse. I'm not sure that there's a significantly better template out there.
I'll do the mockups this week.
ReplyDeleteDay Off 2UU
ReplyDeleteInstant - (U)
Counter target spell. Its controller skips their next untap step.
Wow! This will be very exciting to control players, but it punishes tapping out for a big spell so cruelly that I'd recommend costing it at 3UU or more.
DeleteI think pricing it at 5 is just saying "no one will ever play this ever" (which might make the world a happier place?), but I'm happy to let development sort it out. I think this card looks better than it is by quite a bit.
DeleteI'm not sure about the rarity, as it could certainly be rare.
I'm ok with it at uncommon. I think I'd prefer it never show up in standard, particularly a standard with any type of dominating control deck. Maybe something to print in a supplemental product?
DeleteCastle Slums
ReplyDeleteLand - Rare
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
3, T: Target nonbasic land becomes a copy of Castle Slums.
Actually, I think I like this even better flavorwise, and it fits the challenge even better:
DeleteCastle Slums
Land - Rare
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
4, T: Tap target nonbasic land. It becomes a copy of Castle Slums.
The numbers on this don't seem to broken, but I could see this leading to an incredibly unfun griefer deck.
DeleteCaylus
ReplyDeleteLegendary Land
T: Add (1) to your mana pool.
3, T: Choose one — Draw two cards; Add (5) to your mana pool; put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield; or, CARDNAME gains all activated abilities of another target land (this effect lasts indefinitely). You must spend three different colours of mana to activate this ability.
I think this has too many choices, especially given how unexciting the three that aren't "draw two cards" are. You're unlikely to have more than one land you want to put into play by the point you're activating this, and aside from silly combos with Dark Depths I don't see much reason for the Thespian's Stage ability. Adding 5 to your mana pool is only a net gain of 1 mana (at the cost of jumping through quite the hoops).
DeleteOn the other hand, drawing two cards repeatedly off a land seems ridiculously strong, and the fact that those colors could be something like RGW makes it feel pretty color pie breaking.
(For the record, I think it is still overpowered if the ability costs UUU to activate and you also have to sacrifice the land).
All that said, I do like the idea of a "charm land" with lots of tiny upsides to choose from, the upsides just have to be way more tiny. A good point of comparison would be Desolate Lighthouse.
It's an attempt to make a top-down land based on the game, Caylus, because the picture reminded me of that game. In the game, you build a castle by spending three resources of different types. When you do, you get one of four abilities of your choice.
DeleteBut you're quite right about balance, and how odd this looks in a vaccum.
Oh yes, as an avid board gamer I appreciated the reference!
DeleteI could see something like:
Caylus Bazaar
Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
3, discard three cards, T: Draw 3 cards. You must spend 3 different colors of mana to activate this ability.
I think this feels like trading at a market, though I worry about the power level in something really designed to abuse this.
I actually really like the "discard three cards" part of the cost. But the fact you only draw 3 cards (rather than have a choice of what to do), doesn't feel Caylus-y. Blarg. I feel like there's an obvious design there between the two of us that I can't see.
DeleteMaybe a trading post-like template, with different costs and effects that go around a circle? I've never played Caylus, so maybe that won't work.
DeleteI wouldn't expect any one card to be able to capture something of all 4 Caylus favour tracks.
DeletePerhaps a cycle? {1}{W}{U}, {T} / {1}{W}{B}, {T} / {1}{W}{R}, {T} / {1}{W}{G}, {T}? (Arbitrarily choosing {W} because we want a cycle of 4, because white is the colour with most flavour ties to "castle" and "building", and because one of the 3 blocks for building a castle batch always has to be food.)
A cycle probably makes the most sense.
DeleteWant to do a final template before I send the mockups out?
DeleteI had a go at this cycle over here: http://multiverse.heroku.com/cards/37931 . It's quite hard to find abilities that both have a flavour tie to "gain resources", "gain VPs", "gain money" and "build a building" that are fair on a 3-mana activated ability on a land.
DeleteInspired by Bass:
ReplyDeleteMedieval Market
Land (Rare)
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you pay 5.
T: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. You draw a card, gain 1 life, and put a 1/1 colorless Citizen creature token onto the battlefield.
This is cool, but weird: it's basically an artifact spell, not a land. I think an artifact that costs 5 would be less annoying for players who would put this in and realise that actually, it doesn't really work as a land.
DeleteGood point. I don't have anything to justify the land-ness beyond flavor, but maybe there's a way to make this work.
DeleteMedieval Market
Land (Rare)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool. If CARDNAME is inhabited, you draw a card, gain 1 life, and put a 1/1 colorless Citizen creature token onto the battlefield.
5, T: CARDNAME becomes inhabited.
Maybe try fortification tech? It kind of makes sense, for a market that could move from town to town.
DeleteMedieval Market 1
Artifact - Fortification?
When fortified land becomes tapped, draw a card, gain 1 life, and put a 1/1 colorless Citizen token onto the battlefield.
Fortify 5
I like Pasteur's solution a lot.
DeleteI like the fortification idea, but for my submission I'd rather go with the "inhabited" version since it's weird, interesting, and more closely accomplishes what I envisioned when designing the card. (I suppose an alternative to the "inhabited" hack would be to make it a DFC, but we don't have art for the other side.)
DeleteIn hindsight, "Fortification" is a really crummy choice of subtype name. "Building" or "Structure" would have given the mechanic a much higher chance of actually seeing print. And now I really want to make a bunch of Structure cards...
Is there a reason not to use a counter to signify it's status? It's weird to give permanents an arbitrary status in the game without using a counter.
DeleteMedieval Market
Land (Rare)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool. If CARDNAME is has a population counter on it, draw a card, gain 1 life, and put a 1/1 colorless Citizen creature token onto the battlefield.
5, T: Put a population counter on ~.
Inhabit is a lot like monstrosity for lands, which I really like.
DeleteYeah, I was going for the monstrosity parallel-- but that nearly always has +1/+1 counters to indicate it, and zefferal's counter version is clearly better.
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ReplyDeleteFestival Grounds
ReplyDeleteLand (Rare)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
1, T: You and target opponent each draw a card, and gain 1 life. That opponent then gains control of Festival Grounds.
Shrovetide Square
ReplyDeleteLand (c)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
T, Tap an untapped creature you control: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Springleaf Drum land? I like!
DeleteI have designed this before, but at uncommon, which I feel like is the correct place for it. Solid card though.
DeleteMy pitch is definitely "101st common".
DeleteAura / Pasteur: I like it.
DeleteAbandoned Festival
ReplyDeleteLand (R)
Abandoned Festival enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add 2 to your mana pool. Activate this ability only if no creatures are on the battlefield.
The art looked really sad to me, so I made a card to reflect that. Could also work in post-apocalyptic version of Tesla in a deck focusing on non-mech artifacts.
Very interesting restriction. It seems relatively balanced, though I'm not sure a set where this is strongly playable is a set for me. Could probably try adding a straight "T: Add 1" as well, as it's already ETBT.
Delete2b (u)
ReplyDeleteenchantment
Whenever a player tappes a creature or artifact, he or she loses 1 life.
I don't know a good name
"Carnival of the Soulless?" Works as a slight shoutout to Carnival of Souls.
DeleteExtended Siesta 2U
ReplyDeleteEnchantment (R)
Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes tapped, That creature doesn't untap during its controller' s next untap step.
For some reason I'm interested in this in Red? Would that make any sense at all?
DeleteSuper tap definitely isn't red. Possibly white, but much more likely blue.
DeleteMore enchant lands I guess:
ReplyDeleteTravelling Fair 1G
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted land has T: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool.
When enchanted land becomes tapped, an opponent gains control of CARDNAME and enchants a land he or she controls with it.
Mass Disappearance 2WWW
ReplyDeleteInstant (R)
Exile any number of target creatures. At the beginning of the next end step, return each card exiled this way to the battlefield tapped under its owner’s control with a +1/+1 counter on it.
Back from GenCon. Review tomorrow; I hope.
ReplyDeleteTin Street
ReplyDeletePlane - Ravnica
At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card, then discards a card.
Whenever you roll Chaos, each player chooses a non-land permanent they control. The player to their left gains control of the chosen permanent.
Tin Street
DeletePlane - Ravnica
At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card, then discards a card.
Whenever you roll Chaos, each player chooses a non-land permanent they control. The player to their left gains control of the chosen permanent. Tap those permanents.
Fairgrounds
ReplyDeleteLand-Rare
Tap: Add one color of any mana that no other lands you control could produce.
What happens if you have two of them?
Delete