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 someone volunteers to render the cards.
Design a card for this art with a converted mana cost between 8 and 12. Bonus points if it's awesome for Tesla or Zeffrikar. Bonus points if it doesn't need to be rare, but that's probably a trap.
Herald the Apocalypse 9BB
ReplyDeleteSorcery (MR)
Destroy any number of target creatures.
Herald the Apocalypse costs 1 less to cast for each creature it targets.
“When the world ends, a chosen few will be spared. Sadly, you won’t.”
Better than Hex!
DeleteI like that this card essentially lets you delve your living creatures. (Should creature-delve be a mechanic?)
DeleteConvoke is basically creature delve!
DeleteWhere's the like button?
DeleteThis is very cool. It's a big spell for Timmy/Tammy with a hidden fun mode for Spike!
DeleteTerrifyingly strong. A two-mana Plague Wind in a big multiplayer game, but also even in a duel against a token deck or swarm deck. Instant EDH staple.
Delete(I say "terrifying strong" as if that's a bad thing, but eh, it's pretty much part of the spec for a lot of mythic rares.)
Planetfall
ReplyDelete7RRR
Sorcery - Mythic Rare
Deal 10 damage to target creature, planeswalker, or opponent.
Landfall - If a land entered the battlefield under you control this turn and you cast CARDNAME from your hand, copy it for each other permanent or player it could target. Each copy targets a different one of those permanents and players.
Why does "from your hand" matter? It's not like you can reanimate sorceries.
DeleteSo the copies don't copy again ad infinitum, though I guess you don't need from your hand for that.
DeleteAlso, Sins of the Past disagrees with you.
I love the flavour here -- one giant spell, or one GIANT spell. I'm not sure if landfall is the right trigger though -- it seems like most of the time you'll have this in hand and cast it when you play your tenth land, and on the occasions you don't it will just feel bad. Could it have a different condition between the two modes, even though the flavour might be less good?
DeleteJust as cycling was reintroduced with land cycling and ultimately basicland cycling, would it make sense for landfall to "evolve" into something more specific like "Mountainfall"?
DeleteIf so, this card screams "drop a mountain from a high place and watch the world burn".
Planar Convergence 7u
ReplyDeleteSorcery
Draw ten cards. Then discard X cards, where X is 10 minus the highest converted mana cost among permanents you control.
Nice!
DeleteTen seems arbitrary. Not that its bad, but seven is the default for large card draw (or possibly 13 on Innistrad). Can the card draw be variable or tie into something flavor based?
DeleteGood card for Eldrazi sets, either way!
There's some argument to be made for wanting to care whether you have a Pelakka Wurm or Artisan of Kozilek.
DeleteLandfall (mythic)
ReplyDelete5WUBRG
Legendary Enchantment
You may play any number of lands each turn.
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, gain 3 life, each opponent loses 3 life, draw a card, and destroy up to one target permanent.
This will be fun to Show and Tell into play on turn one.
DeleteUnless this card is cheated into play, the unlimited land drop ability is trinket text.
DeleteWhat if this had smaller triggered abilities and a leyline clause?
It isn't trinket text because lands cantrip. You don't need to draw many cards before you can just chain through your whole deck and win. Like that cool Seismic Assault deck from years back.
DeleteSeismic Swans! :D
DeleteThis thing doesn't ping my "broken" radar mostly because of how tricky it will be to find the land:nonland ratio you'd have to have for the chain to consistently go off.
Is the Vindicate supposed to be the "red ability"?
Blood Eclipse 7R
ReplyDeleteEnchantment (r)
Nonland permanents are Mountains.
Really weird and really sweet. I'd tack on a "that aren't named CARDNAME" clause though just to avoid the issue of having an ability that continues to apply even after the permanent loses it.
DeleteThis is really awesome.
DeleteThanks! I'm not a layers guru - if this just said "other", would that be enough? You do sometimes have two blood moons in play (usually to play around spot removal), but do you think that could be enough of a corner case that people could just learn "oh, in that case, they're both also mountains"? ...or am I wrong and its dependent on timestamps and only one of them is?
DeleteUnder the "other" wording, based on my reading of dependencies, they form a dependency loop and you just apply timestamp order. Eclipse #1 won't be a Mountain and the rest of them will.
DeleteEven though it would detract from the simplicity of this card, I agree with Jenesis. "Permanents not named CARDNAME are mountains in addition to their other types."
DeleteIt reads worse, but would play better in corner cases. Or it could you could just make it legendary.
I'm tempted towards "other nonland permanents" + legendary, or maybe even "nonland, nonenchantment permanents" over the "not named ~ clause." But I wonder whether this needs to grant the land type in order to provide the subtype - and if so, what's the cleanest wording then. Maybe calling types out?
Delete"Creatures, artifacts, and planeswalkers are Mountain lands." ? This hoses manlands, unfortunately, which was something I liked avoiding in the original version.
The "nonenchantment" clause would also make this fit better into Red's slice of the color pie.
DeleteI don't like specifically excluding enchantments. Red already can't destroy enchantments. I feel that it's only fair to let red screw with enchantments in non-destroy ways like this one.
DeleteIs this approved for final version:
DeleteOther nonland permanents are Mountains (They lose their other types and abilities and have “T: Add R to your mana pool.”)
Yes, I'll take that wording and reminder text. Thanks again for the feedback, everybody.
DeleteAn argument for keeping enchantments included would be that red's "wreck the world!" cards like Worldfire and Apocalypse regularly hit all permanents; but at the same time, Jokulhaups and Obliterate don't, so the fight for color pie vs. clarity might be on a case-by-case basis.
Day of Annihilation 10
ReplyDeleteSorcery (M)
Exile all permanents. For each land exiled this way, its controller puts a colorless land token named Ruin with “T: Add 1 to your mana pool” onto the battlefield.
Oh, interesting! Mass land destruction that colour screws but doesn't mana screw.
DeleteLove it mechanically! Ruin tokens are generic enough, but seem like a flavor miss. What object is generic enough to represent the charred remains of a squirrel, an island, and an enchantment?
DeleteDebris, remnant, husk, detritus, flotsam (lol)?
The ruin tokens only replace the land, so I think the flavor fits.
DeleteCurious if this would be a splashy first card introducing ruin tokens to test the waters, or the mythic in a vertical cycle.
This is a very cleverly asymmetric effect for the Eldrazi deck. That said, I think land tokens generally require too much effort to be worth tracking.
DeleteI don't love ruin tokens either, and I wouldn't expect them to show up on any other card in the set. It was the best way I could think of to represent "the Eldrazi turn the current battlefield into a wasteland, but lands you explore later (play on subsequent turns) can tap for colors" without awkward memory issues.
DeleteIn non-tournament games I'd expect players to just turn their ruined lands upside-down.
My bad on the land thing. Redacted.
DeleteNot that I love counters on lands either, but if it's for a single card that might be easier to track. Mostly hinges on how many players would actually turn their cards face down (which I agree is the easiest of all).
DeleteWorld Ablaze 7RR
ReplyDeleteSorcery (M)
Put a blaze counter on each land an opponent controls. For as long as those lands have blaze counters on them, they have "At the beginning of your upkeep, this land deals 1 damage to you."
But do those lands continue to burn?
DeleteLol @ zefferal ! Favorite card so far
DeleteOh, this is one sided? Even though this is a super expensive epic win spell, it's a little too inexorable and a fast. This should cost more, work slower, or have a risky element for balance.
DeleteStill my favorite so far, just seems a little too good as is.
Thanks, Mike! I'm not really sure on the power level. Searing Wind was never very good, and this is much more likely to give them an extra turn to kill you, but I suppose as an unstoppable win condition in a control deck it has room to be scary. Let's try it at {7}{R}{R}{R} for now.
DeleteDoesn't fit the parameters of the challenge, but I think doing this for nonbasics at a more aggressive cost makes for a really interesting sideboard rare.
DeleteIt's no Blood Moon, but I think that space still makes games hinge too much on sideboard cards. When Burning Earth was in Standard it was pretty much impossible for the UWx control decks to beat once resolved.
DeleteFiery Dawn 6RR (Uncommon)
ReplyDeleteSorcery
CARDNAME costs 2 less to cast for each card in your graveyard with converted mana cost 6 or greater.
CARDNAME deals 4 damage to each creature. Exile the top 4 cards of your library. You may play cards exiled this way until the end of your next turn.
Firstly, I know that it's weird for a card with cmc 8 to care about cards with cmc 6, but it is strict matter of playability. I can imagine a format where you want a few big spells, but if you have to play several huuuuge spells to turn on your other huge spells the whole format would have to warp just to make that a fringe deck.
There's a lot of numbers here. The cost reduction uses 2, the effect uses 4, the cares-about-CMC clause uses 6, and the card's CMC is 8. Is there any way to streamline some of these?
DeleteWraths that deal 4 damage tend to be rare. I feel the cost reduction + impulsive draw (thus making it more likely you'll actually be able to play any nonlands you flip up) pushes this out of uncommon territory, even if Flame Wave is better a generous portion of the time.
Dangerously tempted to combo it with Flame Javelin and friends.
When Worlds Collide. WWUUBBRRGG
ReplyDeleteSorcery. M
Each player's life total becomes 5.
Each player exiles all but the bottom 5 cards of his or her library. Then each player exiles 5 creatures, 5 lands, and 5 non-creature non-land permanents he or she controls.
Multi-planar (If CARDNAME would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.)
What degenerate shenanigans is Multi-planar stopping compared to a simple "Exile CARDNAME" upon resolving?
DeleteOfficial change:
DeleteAdd "exile CARDNAME" as the final stage of the text. And change Multi-planar to a shuffle effect.
Multi-planar (or Multi-Dimensional) is intended to give a little bit of flavor to the OMG's of the multiverse (Progenitus, serra Avatar, etc) while also bringing attention to an important part of the story (The Multiverse) that has little to no in game representation.
@jenesis: I was typing my change so I don't see your response right away. My initial thought was to limit graveyard shenanigans with a shuffle effect, but I wanted the simplest version since it's intended to be semi-evergreen. (See the official change). The hang up was that it would, upon resolution, shuffle itself into your library (wrecking the five card library symmetry). Hence, the now defunct exile effect.
DeleteGood point, though! :)
Not a submission, just a brainstorming:
DeleteEmrakozilamog. 10
Leg creature- Eldrazi mutant
Champion three Eldrazi
~'s power is equal to the total power of cards it championed. It's toughness is equal to their total toughness. And it gains all of their Annihilator abilities.
*/*
It took me a long time to realize that leg was an abbreviation.
DeleteI don't think Eldrazi fusion is the way to go. You need two big ones for it to feel any good. No one wants to fuse with a Spawn to give their Eldrazi +0/+1.
DeleteJust a head's up, if you don't come up with a much shorter name the title on the render is going to look super squishy
DeletePlanar Strike? World Smash? Entropy? Heat Death?
DeleteI'm quite partial to the name. Would changing the mana cost help? 5WUBRG?
DeleteHelped significantly.
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ReplyDeleteCrucible of Suns 10
ReplyDeleteLegendary Artifact
You may play artifact cards from your graveyard.
A space scene + splashy artifact? Let's try a callback to crucible of worlds! I considered making this a bit cheaper and having it exile artifacts that go into the graveyard so you can only re-use them once, but there was no clean wording. So lets have the broken version. It's still a shame because you rarely get to have fun with it -- it will normally be part of an infinite combo or not so it has to be really expensive, even though that means it's no use outside of that. Could it be cheaper?
If anyone can think of wording that would let it do a similar job, but not allow infinite recursion, without being too wordy, I'd use that instead. Maybe something like, preventing returning artifacts that went to the graveyard from the battlefield this turn?
You may play artifact cards from your graveyard.
DeleteWhenever an artifact would be put into your graveyard from the battlefield, exile it instead.
Or...
DeleteYou may play artifact cards from your graveyard. If you do they enter the battlefield with a Remnant counter.
Whenever an artifact with a remnant counter would be put into the graveyard, exile it instead.
Or...
DeletePay the mana cost of an artifact in your graveyard and exile it: put a token that's a copy of that artifact onto the battlefield
Or...
DeleteYou may play only one artifact spell per turn and you may play artifact cards in your graveyard
I think either revision #1 (the "Yawgmoth's Will clause") or a simple anti-reanimation mechanic ala Blightsteel would be fine. The worst that can happen is that someone dumps this into play t1 off land + Lotus Petal(s) + Show and Tell and proceeds to go infinite, but truthfully there are much more consistent SnT combos in Legacy.
DeleteUnrevised this would be pretty ridiculous, I agree. Goes straight into my Daretti EDH.
Hm, Back from the Brink allows you to return creatures once for cost 6 and creatures are on average more powerful than artifacts, so to justify an 8+ cost maybe this does need to allow infinite recursion. In fact, maybe it should only cost 8?
DeleteImpact of the Worlds 6RR
ReplyDeleteSorcery (M)
Impact of the Worlds deals damage to each player and to each creature controlled by that player equal to the number of lands he or she controls.
"Each land deals 1 damage to its controller and each creature that player controls."? Probably doesn't read any better either.
DeleteDoes this work for you:
DeleteFor each player, CARNAME deals X damage to that player and each creature he or she controls; where X is the number of lands that player controls.
Yeah, Mike, that was more or less how I first worded it. It had something off, so I changed it. Which is more clear?
DeleteI think by grouping the players with counting their own lands, then stating what that number applies to helps streamline the effect.
DeleteOriginal wording looks fine once you parse it out. I don't like having rules text with X that secretly has multiple values of X.
DeleteBig Bang 6RRGG
ReplyDeleteInstant- Mythic
Restart the game, leaving in play 3 target lands.
Flavor text: Why are we asking were the Eldrazi come from when we don't even know were we came from? -Ugin
Neat idea! As Karn is the only precedent, exiling might be necessary.
DeleteExile up to three target lands. Then, restart the game and put all land cards exiled by CARDNAME onto the battlefield.
I dream of exiling hideaway lands with this card, then exiling this card with them...
The only reason it was remotely okay to print the Karn ultimate is that it will almost never actually happen. The vast majority of players aren't going to understand how the new game works. That the player who created the effect goes first. Or that the permanents are on the battlefield before the first turn begins and that Mutavault can attack right away. I want to see some good reminder text before considering this.
DeleteAs a mythic at ten mana It's justifiable to do unordinary things. Plus they don't have reminder text for Karn and hes still playable. Many cards in magics history have been confusing and different (mindslaver, etc.) with many rules and errata that come with them.
Delete- Mike George-
DeleteKarn exiled those cards because of his previous ability's. When looking at him and trying to figure out a simpler execution I came up with this. Exiling the lands would just add an extra dimension this doesn't need.
This seems fine for its cost, but I'd make it a sorcery. Being able to hold 10 mana up and never lose the game ever is a really unfun effect to play against, especially in multiplayer Commander games.
DeleteI also support adding reminder text. Karn couldn't because the text would be literally unreadable if it did. See Time Stop for how to get the gist of a CR section across without having to go into every little detail.
Does this need to target (and thus fizzle if your opponent kills all the lands in response)?
Big Bang 6RRGG
DeleteSorcery- Mythic
Restart the game, leaving up to 3 lands on the battlefield( You are the starting player. Permanents on the battlefield at the beginning of the game are unaffected by summoning sickness.)
Hopefully this solves some of the problems. Is there anything else I should add to the reminder text or phrase differently.
DeleteAs an aside I made it an instant because its better to make a card overpowered and fix it in development or ban it, than to make a card players just want more from. Plus the Big Bang can happen at anytime, at INSTANT speed. that and i wanted your reaction.
Jenesis' (good) point about Sorcery speed has nothing to do with power level and everything to do with play patterns. Making this an instant robs the player of the decision of when to cast it and doesn't let their opponents feel like they have an opening. I like your latest version quite a bit better.
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ReplyDeletePlaneswalk [2/W][2/U][2/B][2/R][2/G]
ReplyDeleteSorcery [mythic]
Choose one —
• Exile all non-planeswalkers.
• Search your library for a planeswalker card and put it onto the battlefield.
Wow. Pretty sweet!
DeleteIn the deck that wants this, the modes are slightly skewed towards always choosing the first option, but that send ok. Not happy that this kills all lands too. (The "land tap" is generally a metaphor represented by land cards, not an actual place, so exiling all lands isn't strictly necessary)
Neat design, but something should change devolopmentally IMHO. WUBRG to Armageddon plus Wrath (that leaves your PWs even) seems a bit too much.
Delete"Just the second mode" seems pretty convincingly powerful/mythic to me. Obzedat's Aid and Fist of the Suns have both seen play, so I imagine a flexible WUBRG-"search for Karn/the strongest appropriate PW in standard" would be playable/fun.
DeleteI prefer this sorcery with just the second mode, yeah.
DeleteIn fact, actually, I could see arguments that each mode should exist independently as separate sorceries.
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DeleteAll good notes, my only concern is cardnames like "Planeswalk" or "Invisibility" you want to be really reprintable and good, stock cards. So it seems Planeswalk either means, you planeswalk or someone else planeswalks.
DeleteMaybe it would be better as:
Choose one or both —
•Exile target planeswalker.
•Search your library for a planeswalker card and cast it without paying its mana cost.
There could be something fun in adding the trinket text, "If you chose both, the exiled and cast planeswalkers must share a planeswalker subtype." but it probably isn't worth it.
Transcendent Syzygy 5UUU
ReplyDeleteEnchantment - (M)
Whenever a player would draw a card, if it is the first card they've drawn a card that turn, instead reveal that player's library and choose a non-land card from it. Put that card into their hand, and then shuffle their library.
--------------
The weird template is to (I think) force you not to "fail to find" when searching for your opponent. My understanding is that when searching a revealed zone, you have to find something if possible. Jenesis (or others) feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, this is a weird ability to be in Blue mechanically, but none the less it feels flavor and mechanicswise like it is Blue to me. I am open to vehement objections in that regard.
Guided Passage says this works.
DeleteIs the intent basically that no one can draw land cards for the rest of the game? I can see this being really unfun to lose to, as it removes all surprise from the draw step and your opponent can always give you a card that you can't cast.
TIL that "Syzygy" is a word.
How many cards can you not cast when your opponent is casting an 8 mana enchantment?
DeleteThe non-land clause is there because it would be unfun to give your opponent a land every turn for the rest of the game.
DeleteBasically it says "for the rest of the game I draw my best card every turn and you draw your worst. ". Will just win the game on some board states, but super easy to cast this and lose. I don't recommend playing it against the burn deck.
DeleteMass LD, ramp, and Show and Tell effects go a long way (the first two being the best way to exploit this in EDH, and the latter two being probably the only way this is actually seeing play in non-casual formats).
DeleteYeah, giving your opponent a land every turn would be pretty boring. Sucks that you can't give yourself land though.
I'm not sure if the first draw clause belongs there either. The only time it will be relevant is if your opponent already has a draw spell in hand at the time this resolves, since it's not like you'll actually want to give your opponent more card advantage (a deck that doesn't care wouldn't be running a pure card selection card in the first place).
Or has an Azure Mage, etc. I don't want to have to do this process X times if someone casts Sphinx's revelation. Also makes it dangerous to give can trips.
DeleteCould easily have a "that player chooses land or non land" clause and you have to match what they say.
I would put the card as-is in black, since Head Games and Maralen are seem like the closest precedents. If there was a way to template it, though, I'd try a symmetrical (your opponent chooses for you) version as an artifact. My attempt at a template and avoiding long minutes of shuffling:
DeletePlayers play with their libraries revealed.
Whenever a player would draw a card, that player chooses land or non-land. Put a card of the chosen type from his or her library into his or her hand.
I don't like it being symmetrical. I generally think symmetrical cards appeal to a very, very narrow set of players. It is way cooler to have it be (almost) all upside.
DeleteI can definitely get behind that, and it's priced to match.
DeleteDo you think "play with libraries revealed" is allowable under the rules?
@ Pasteur Technically? Probably. Logistically? A huge mess if you turn everybody's library upside down, resolve a few searches, then stick Song of the Dryads on it.
DeleteWhat if you had each player choose land or nonland? There is a green enchantment that does this type of thing.
Delete@Mike: That's what I was suggesting. It also helps you draw lands, if somehow you cast this and want that ninth land.
DeleteMy suggestion:
DeleteEnchantment - M
Your opponents each skip their draw step.
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player chooses a card type. Search that player's library for a card of the chosen type and reveal it. That player puts that card in his or her hand and shuffles his or her library.
I considered that but decided it is way too strong (for the opponent), and doesn't also let you have fun.
DeleteMoonforge {4}{U}{U}{R}{R}
ReplyDeleteSorcery
As an additional cost to cast Moonforge, sacrifice X lands. Search your library for up to X permanent cards that have converted mana cost X or less and put them onto the battlefield.
Without the challenge requirement, would this have X in its cost?
DeleteThis one's kinda random, but it was the first thing I thought of...
ReplyDeletePlanar Collision 6RR
Sorcery (Mythic Rare, White-Bordered)
Combine this game with target game you can see from your seat. Those games become a single Two-Headed Giant game. (You choose which player from the other game joins your team. Life totals for each team become the combined life totals of that team's players.)
*silver-bordered
DeletePoints!
DeleteSuggested name change: event horizon
This is awesome! My question is what happens when you cast the second one? Can we avoid specifying 2HG to allow for increasing team size?
DeleteFirst of all, this is a neat design intellectually, but...
DeleteStandard Un-card question (and I really disagree with Mark here about how well past un-sets have succeeded at this ): Will anyone want to put this in their deck? Who?
This gets really messy if the games that are merged don't have the same number of players. Do the unchosen players simply lose?
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DeleteThanks for the excellent suggestions!
DeleteNew version:
Event Horizon 6RR
Sorcery (Mythic Rare, Silver-Bordered)
Combine this game with target game you can see from your seat. Those games become a single multiplayer game. You choose that game's format and each player's role, if any. (Players' life totals, permanents, hands, etc. are unchanged.)
I love it!
Delete@Tommy: I absolutely agree with you, that many of the Un-cards read neat and fun, but fail to be something someone wants actually to play with. That said, this at least caters to the big random red spell fans (aka Warp World-ers)
I'll do the renders this week.
ReplyDeleteEnd of Days 8
ReplyDeleteEnchantment M
At the end of each player’s turn, that player puts an apocalypse counter on End of Days, then draws a card for each counter on it.
At the beginning of each player’s first main phase each turn, that player adds 1 to his or her mana pool for each counter on End of Days.
Leyline of Consistency
ReplyDelete5gwu
Enchantment
If ~ is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it on the battlefield. If you do, lose half your life.
When ETBs exile any number of land cards from your library, then shuffle it.
Whenever you draw a card, you may put a land card exiled this way into your hand.
Just to confirm: this is "Whenever you draw a card, get a land" - i.e. get two cards instead of one? And not "If you would draw a card, you may instead take a land" - i.e. get one card that's know to be a land?
DeleteThat's fine for 8 mana; Thought Reflection rather than Abundance. Just wanted to be sure because "Consistency" sounds like you might have intended it to be Abundance-style choosing which you get.