Friday, March 25, 2016

Weekend Art Challenge 032516—Answer Cards

Weekend Art Challenge
Hello Artisans. Anastase here. This week I suggest you the following challenge:

There are in Magic many 'answer' cards. R&D uses those as safety plugs to prevent crazy combos to dominate constructed formats, by giving you silver bullets against them.

Cards like Grafdigger's Cage, Loxodon Smiter and Stony Silence come to mind.

Design an 'answer' card that either:
  • uses the word 'instead'
  • specifically prevents your opponent from doing a small subset of possible actions
Bonus point if the card is neither oppressive nor totally useless in other situations.

Here are the images I suggest for this week's challenge:

by Roswell-Ivory
by balaskas
by CGlas
I will try to give feedback on your submissions over the weekend. Each Artisan is allowed one submission, but can update it as many times as needed. Please state the rarity of the card you submit. If you have a creative-commons art that better fits your card, please include a link to it and I will render the card with that art.

Good crafting, Artisans!

35 comments:

  1. From the Mist 1R (Art #3)
    Instant (r)
    Until end of turn, if a creature would enter the battlefield under an opponent's control and it wasn't cast, it enters the battlefield tapped. Put a token copy of that creature onto the battlefield under your control.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Take that, Giant Adephage!

      Delete
    2. How is this red and not blue? (See: Gather Specimens.)

      Delete
  2. Angel of Balance 3WW (Art #1)
    Creature-Angel
    Flying
    Counter any spell that would cause you to sacrifice a creature unless that spell's controller sacrifices a creature.
    4/4

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Will the average player know all the Gatherer rulings on Equinox?

      Delete
    2. This is a neat idea and design buried in a confusing templating. Even polished I'm not a fan of "countering" in white. Instead, how about punishing the opponent that tries to make you sacrifice, by making them sacrifice?
      Something like:

      Flash
      If a spell or ability controlled by another player would cause you to sacrifice a creature, instead that player sacrifices a creature.

      Delete
    3. That could work. I was unaware of the card equinox but was aware that white had a very limited access to countering. I came up with this card as a way to discourage edict effects but not completely shut them off. The idea was that it would fit in as a sideboard card against creatureless control decks.

      Delete
  3. Damping Monolith 2
    Artifact (R)
    Players casting spells don't cause abilities to trigger.

    Art #2

    ReplyDelete
  4. Two related ideas for art #1, both aimed at being relevant answers in older formats:

    Egalitarian Angel 2WW
    Creature- Angel (Rare)
    3/3
    Flying, first strike
    Whenever a spell or ability would refer to the name of something, instead treat that spell or ability as if nothing was named.

    Lawgiver Angel 2WW
    Creature- Angel (Rare)
    3/3
    Flying, first strike
    As long as CARDNAME is revealed from your hand, cards in your hand can't be chosen by opponents. (If a spell or ability would cause an opponent to choose a card in your hand, instead no card is chosen.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lawgiver Angel interacts awkwardly with Vendilion Clique (and the tournament rules that let you reveal your hand at any time).

      Delete
    2. These are neat ideas, and I honestly don't know if they do work in the rules.
      Something I don't understand is why you and others see a flying angel in that art. It isn't in flight nor has wings. I see a big woman figure, it could be an Avatar or a Giant.

      Delete
    3. "Cards don't have names"? I'm not sure it's /impossible/ for that to work. Seems stable, but likely something more for an Un-set.

      While it doesn't cover every case, I wonder whether Lawgiver could say "If a spell or ability an opponent controls would cause you to discard a card, you may reveal that card and CARDNAME. If you do, return that card to your hand." I do vaguely remember one of these threads pointing out that you can't trigger abilities in your hand, but I'm not sure I really understood the timg.

      I imagine that might be a more appealing card as "If an spell or ability an opponent controls would cause you to discard CARDNAME, return it to your hand instead.
      Flying, first strike
      You can't discard cards."

      Delete
    4. Ugh, 'look at' versus 'reveal' is annoying. I'd rather follow the spirit of the challenge than rules-hack my way to similar functionality, so names it is. Also, good point about the creature type, P.

      Avatar of Fairness 2WW
      Creature- Avatar (Rare)
      3/3
      Flying, first strike
      Whenever a spell or ability would refer to the name of something, instead treat that spell or ability as if nothing was named.

      Take that, True-Name Nemesis!

      Delete
    5. Despite the name, TNN doesn't actually "name" anything. :P

      Still don't see flying in this art. (Maybe reach?) I can respect the first strike solely because it always beats TNN in combat. Maybe even 3/4 so it beats TNN in a fight too.

      Delete
    6. Oops, I thought TNN *named* a player (and didn't bother double-checking).

      That sends me back to my original design idea:

      Spells and abilities opponents control can't cause players to make choices. (If a player would choose something, that player chooses nothing instead. Targeting is not a choice.)

      Delete
    7. On second thought, the "can't choose" formulation captures most of what I want out of this design. Unfortunately it has substantial compatibility issues with, e.g. Charms and and Arc Lightning (to name the first few that came up in Gatherer). So I think 'choose' would have to be defined more strictly. Final design:

      Archon of Fairness 2WW
      Creature- Archon (Rare)
      3/4
      Flying
      Whenever a spell or ability would cause an opponent to choose one or more cards, permanents, spells, and/or players, that player chooses nothing instead. (Targeting isn't choosing.)

      Fun Johnny combos with cards like Archfiend of Depravity, Gifts Ungiven, and Worldpurge. Also, I think I finally found the right creature type.

      Delete
  5. Silent Monolith 3
    [Art by Balaskas]
    Artifact (Rare)
    T: Add C to your mana pool.
    3, T: Until end of turn, each player can’t draw more than two cards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bonus flavor text:
      "Take that, Talrand players!"
      - Mysterious engravings on the Silent Monolith

      Delete
    2. It's one-sided, but at that cast + activation cost, I'd even go for "one card". Pop it on upkeep and they can only draw their one draw step card.

      Delete
  6. I should have called the challenge take that ---- !

    I know it is my challenge, but I am too happy about this card not to talk about it:

    Etherial Anchor {3} Art #2
    Uncommon
    {2}: until EOT, target creature cannot be exiled or returned to its owner's hand.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice flavor match, that.

      Why not just "Creatures [you control] can't be exiled or return to their owners' hands"? Or for more completeness with top-of-library effects: "Creatures can't be put anywhere except a graveyard from the battlefield".

      The one rules hitch I can think of is that the interaction with Annihilating Fire and the like is poorly defined. State-checking rules keep saying the targeted creature should die, the Annihilating Fire ability keeps saying it should be exiled instead, and the Ethereal Anchor ability says that can't happen.

      And, uh... take that, Perilous Vault!

      Delete
  7. Angel of Balance 3WWW
    Creature - Angel
    Flying
    Whenever another creature would enter the battlefield, if any player controls fewer creatures, exile that creature instead. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control when Angel of Balance leaves the battlefield.
    4/4

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neat! I can't help massaging the templating a little...

      Whenever another creature would enter the battlefield, if any player controls fewer creatures than its controller, instead exile that creature until CARDNAME leaves the battlefield.

      Delete
  8. First artwork

    Celestial Remonstrator
    2WW
    Creature - Angel (rare)
    Flying, Persist
    Whenever CARDNAME or another creature enters the battlefield from a graveyard, if it entered with one or more counters on it, you may have it enter with an additional counter of each of those types on it.
    3/4

    If you're playing in Shadowmoor, this stops Kitchen Finks blocking twice or Murderous Redcap killing you due to Melira combo. If you're playing in Dark Ascension, this doubles your Undying counters. Even outside of the random Persist hosing, it's still at least two flyers which seems fine from a limited perspective.

    I look at the second art and see something like "If an ability would choose a creature or player, it instead chooses CARDNAME" alongside a cycling ability... or just being Slate of Ancestry really. I would LOVE it if the third art was something like:

    Walk the Shadowed Path
    4B
    Enchantment
    As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
    Creatures of the chosen type get -1/-0 and have Shadow.

    Choose one - target tribal boardstate can't block, or target tribal boardstate can't BE blocked.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (The angel is my entry, in case that isn't too clear. The other two just seem like somewhat obvious directions to go in for me.)

      Delete
    2. Fascinating. But it feels weird to me that the Angel specifically include itself when you basically never want it to return with an additional -1/-1 counter. Maybe make the doubling mandatory? And maybe remove the graveyard clause so this is less of a narrow answer?

      Delete
  9. Legal Guardian 3W
    [1 Roswell-Ivory]
    Creature-Archon (rare)
    Flying
    If an opponent would make a choice for an effect, instead you make that choice for them.
    3/3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love the punning name, and how the artwork matches one meaning but the textbox matches another.

      I hadn't seen this design but I ended up going down a very similar path (even to the same creature type).

      Delete
    2. Ha. Neat.
      Maybe I should focus on the kinds of choices I was thinking about since those are different from yours:

      Whenever an opponent would choose a number or a mode, you choose for them instead.

      Delete
    3. Then again, 'mode' doesn't normally appear in card text. I'lol just leave it.

      Delete
  10. Sar, the Blind Judge-2W
    Legendary Creature- Human Judge
    Players can't cast spells with higher converted mana costs than the number of lands they control.

    "Only the Blind can judge fairly."
    1/2

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh, that's a cool one, and very relevant too. Maybe not relevant enough to justify a 1/2 body, though. Stats adding up to 4 or 5 seem more likely here.

      Take that, Goblin Charbelcher!

      Delete
    2. I was trying to think of a wording where instead of lands, it was the number of turns, but that was to complicated.

      I wasn't sure how relevant the ability would be, because the only big contender would be eldrazi. It also makes creature based ramp, like Elves in modern pretty bad.

      But I just realized that you can still sneak stuff in to play, aka Show and Tell or Goryo's Vengeance. Which I kinda wanted.

      Delete
    3. Final Submission:

      Sar, the Blind Judge- 1W
      Legendary Creat- Human Judge- Mythic
      If a creature would enter the battlefield and it has a higher converted mana cost than the number of lands you control, exile it instead.
      1/2
      ------------------------------

      My first card might just be better design all around( with the stat change suggested by Ipaulsen) but, hey, I never go for easy. This one is a whole lot more powerful, and would most likely create a completely new deck type across all formats. I call it "Mono White Two Mana Lock Out Control!" Or Hatebears for short.

      Delete