Saturday, June 10, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 060917—DLeoBlack

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single  card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer.


Sorry to post this late. Scrambling to ready a design for Origins. You'll want to see this one.

Design a sorcery (or instant) for this art.

31 comments:

  1. Dangerous Wit 1U
    Instant - Rare

    Endeavor - this spell can only be cast if an opponent controls more creatures than you.

    Gain control of target creature with the highest power until end of turn. Untap it. It gains haste.

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    Replies
    1. Hmm.. a couple of quick thoughts:
      Could this ability word give you an additional bonus instead if you have fewer creatures? ie, even if you don't meet the requirements, let the spell do something.

      This Act of Treason effect is normally red too. Perhaps a more expensive Act of Treason base into Mind Control bonus? Or mind control base with untap haste bonus?

      Delete
    2. Quite like it for the art though!

      Delete
    3. About endeavor, I have thoughts. First, this rewards you for building a creatureless deck and playing against an opponent who didn't. Relying on your opponent's deck type is some landwalk-era tech and we're much more likely do use the opposite: "only if you control more creatures than an opponent." Second, "can only be cast" is severe (compared with "costs more to cast") and a downside mechanic; We'd sooner see "This spell costs 2 less to cast if…" Putting those together, I could easily a mechanic like "This spell costs 2 less to cast if you control more creatures than an opponent" which is exactly as appropriate for blue as Unified Will.

      On that subject, let's look at Dangerous Wit itself. It's Act of Aggression where the target is chosen for you. That's not a blue effect. But it has flash, which is blue. If you removed haste so this could only be used for blocking, that would make this much more blue.

      Delete
  2. Familiarize U
    Sorcery U
    Look at the top three cards of target opponent's library, exile one of them face down, then put the rest on the bottom of that library in a random order. For as long as that card remains exiled, you may look at it, you may cast it, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast it.

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    1. Could also be cost a B or 1{UB}, although the art doesn't work as a mono-black card for me.

      Delete
    2. I like the idea behind Familiarize, but it's 8 lines as written, which is greedy for an uncommon.

      Can get it down to 6.5 lines by removing the selection though getting two will increase the cost (which is fine):
      "Exile the top two cards of target opponent’s library. For as long as those card remain exiled, you may look at them, you may play them, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast them."

      Was trying to figure out how this related to the art, but then I got the pun.

      Delete
  3. Bolas's Tutelage
    B
    Sorcery - Rare
    Name a card, then exile the top 7 cards of your library. Put up to one copy of the named card exiled this way into your hand.

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    1. Dig it.
      The effect doesn't scream Bolas, but the art ties the name and text together.
      I like that this could get you 0-4 cards but will cost you a good chunk of your deck regardless. We most likely have to restrict your choice to nonbasics.

      Delete
    2. It does have the "up to one" clause, though your comment makes me wonder if this could be pushed to not need it.

      Is this black in the current era? Is there a way to push its auxiliary cost/riskiness to put it more in black and out of blue/greens "dig the top chunk of your library" space? X life, exile X+N cards, get one of the named?

      Delete
    3. Plunge into Darkness and regular old Diabolic Tutor were the inspiration - I wanted to find a set number portion of library that you could "search" that it could cost just B. I started with 10, but was worried you could chain them together to exile most of your library and then ??? to win. Seven seemed safe.

      Delete
    4. That said I could see adding a life element. I also played around with the following:

      Bolas's Bargain
      2BB
      Sorcery
      Exile the top card of your library. Lose X life then draw X cards, where X is equal to the converted mana cost of the exiled card plus one.

      ...but was worried there was no real way to keep it from being utterly broken.

      Delete
    5. I did gloss over "up to one." With that, I suspect it's well balanced (and doesn't need 'non-basic'). I kinda like the idea of leaving that off, though, maybe at {1}{B}.

      I like it without the life loss. That card exists already.

      Delete
  4. Shadow Summoning 4B
    Sorcery R
    Search your library for a creature card and put it onto the battlefield. Lose life equal to its power.

    Obviously tutor and cheat-mana-cost can be too powerful. I don't know if eating its power is enough to balance it. I wanted to capture a feel of summoning a shadow, or shade, or ghost version of the creature, but no trinket text seemed to help so I stuck with just the life loss. I also considered it as a one-turn-only thing but giving it haste seemed to make it worse not better.

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    Replies
    1. Not a slam dunk for the art, but close enough to show the inspiration. I like Shadow Summoning. It feels very black. Dev would need to playtest it well, but this might actually be a fair effect. Losing life = CMC would be safer, generally.

      Delete
  5. Visions in Smoke {1}{UR}
    Instant (u)
    Target player draws a card, then ~ deals damage to that player equal to the number of cards they have drawn this turn.
    Strike — If a creature or player was dealt 5 or more damage this turn, you may search your library for a Dragon creature card and reveal it. Shuffle your library, then put that card on top of it.

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    1. A smaller Cerebral Vortex that might set you up to draw a dragon next turn. The nice bit is how it helps you reach the threshold (which I assume is 5 for all strikers). The sad bit is that you can't cast it on yourself to draw a Dragon immediately. The flavor's not a huge slam-dunk but for a set trying to make strike work alongside dragons, I could totally see this getting printed.

      Delete
  6. Dragon Familiar's Counsel 1R
    Sorcery - R
    Discard up to X cards, where X is the power of target creature you control. If you do, draw cards equal to the number of cards discarded this way plus one.

    Exploring red card draw/looting. Is this in color? I think so. Feedback appreciated

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    Replies
    1. "Discard up to X" is a bit awkward, because it often won't reward you for earning a really big X. Tormenting Voice and Cathartic Reunion fall in the spectrum of gameplay this offers (even requiring you to discards cards to draw more than one), but this is rare, so encompassing them and more is fine.

      I think this is red, though it would less arguable if X counted something like the number of goblins you control, the number of sorceries/instants in your graveyard, or the amount of damage you dealt this turn.

      Delete
  7. Horde Raid
    1B
    Sorcery
    Draw a card. If you cast [CARDNAME] from exile, you lose 3 life.
    Rebound

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    Replies
    1. Ouch, that's quite a bit worse than Nights Whispers.

      Delete
    2. Could do "draw a card and lose 1 life" and it'd be more or less equal to Nights Whisper with some advantages (prowess) and drawbacks (don't get both cards immediately).

      Delete
    3. I like how Horde Raid takes Night's Whisper and offsets the life-loss while offering cards immediately; that's a very black "improvement" to make to a card. I do think Dev will want to tweak the numbers so this is more interesting. Maybe:

      Horde Raid {2}{B}
      Sorcery (unc)
      Draw two cards. If you cast [CARDNAME] from exile, you lose 5 life.
      Rebound

      If we ditch rebound, we can be more precise:

      Horde Raid {2}{B}
      Sorcery (unc)
      Draw three cards. At your next upkeep, you lose 5 life.

      That's like the black Ancestral Recall version of Final Fortune. But it makes me think of a slightly more interesting:

      Horde Raid {2}{B}
      Sorcery (unc)
      Draw three cards. At EOT, lose 2 life for each card in your hand.

      Inspiring more designs is always a good sign.

      Delete
    4. Thanks for the kind words, folks. And doubly thanks for not pointing out the autocorrect spelling error: it should've been Hoard Raid.

      Delete
  8. perfumes of undead 1BB

    Sorcery (rare)

    Exile all creature cards from your graveyard, for each creature exiled this way, put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of that card except it's a 1/1, it is black, it's a shade in addition to its other types, and it has shadow.

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    1. Oh, interesting. I've often been intrigued by "you get it, but its not big" effects. But the cost of reanimation effects are constrained by the most powerful creatures, where sometimes the ability is more important than size. Is this safe?

      Delete
    2. This is a neat idea, though it's straddling an unnecessary line: I want this to either copy those creatures and make them 1/1 or make a bunch of 1/1 tokens with shadow. While the combination is fun thematically, it's less focused and too dangerous (self-milling a Phage the Untouchables and a bunch of other saboteurs into your graveyard first).

      Delete
    3. Surely you will have the good sense not to play Phage with this card? But there's other effects nearly as strong.

      Delete
  9. Nice work, Artisans! Some really unique ideas here for a tricky illustration.

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