Weekend Art Challenge Review 050115—ilkerserdar

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Design a card for this art that features a new or under-used form of card advantage. Failing that, card advantage appropriate to common.

Boyung Rhythmmage could draw you several cards, provided you keep casting noncreature spells of increasing size. It's pretty clever that the +1/+1 counter looks like the cherry on top, but is actually doing important work keeping this card in check. Yes, you'll get a sizeable creature for your, but at least you won't be able to play 20 Ponder variants and draw an obscene number of cards. I suspect this wants to cost {1} more and be rare—it is exciting enough—or else cost {2} more and start at 2/2.

Drinking Contest is a straight draw spell for green, but it's a very weak cantrip unless you have not only a creature, but the toughest creature in town—in which case it's better than Divination. I'm not sure how I feel about green getting a card that's conditionally better than blue's default draw spell, but otherwise this is really neat. Cool flavor. Inspires an uncommon version:

Drinking Contest {2}{G}
Sorcery (unc)
Draw a card for each point of toughness the toughest creature you control has in excess of the toughest creature an opponent controls.

Heh. The flavor here is more debatable, but still decent. This Drinking Contest is a much kinder Wheel of Fortune. It can neither force an opponent to discard, nor draw you more cards than you pitch. In fact, it will necessarily leave its caster down a card, though it could still be worthwhile if you've drawn a lot more chaff than your opponent. Card selection.

I can't help but imagine stronger flavor:

Drinking Contest {1}{R}
Sorcery (unc)
Discard any number of cards, then draw that many cards.
Each other player discards that many cards, then draws as many as they discarded this way.

Endless Elixer cycles for {3}, with the intent of doing it more against an opponent with life gain. It's juuust expensive enough that players will rarely include it in their main deck, but could prove quite relevant against the right deck, at least in Limited. Should it require white mana to recur? I could see a cycle of 'endless beverages.'

Having read the second line, I was thinking there should be a creature that can block all opposing creatures and must (because you can always block so that your huge multi-blocker survives).  The last line makes it clear Gennyrhall Enforcers was never intended to be less than a massive haymaker. You can choose to play it after attackers are declared, but why would you? If you play it before then your opponent has to go all in and you can pick off 1-5 creatures more than your army would have otherwise. That's absolutely brutal, but it is a seven-mana gold rare after all.

Grim Excavator is a Gravedigger that gives you the option to recur a land card at the added cost of {G}. That option is fairly minimal though, and I'd expect Excavator to either cost {2}{B}{G}, or be larger, or return one of each card type. I'm also not seeing the connection with this art.

Innkeep deals in rumors, intelligence, and shady opportunities. Nice flavor. And everyone knows token creatures aren't sly or well-connected enough to trade in such commodities? I really don't see a need for the 'nontoken' exception here. Why not let me pay {4} more when I Goblin Rally to get four extra rummages? Other than that, this has good flavor and pretty solid play. Could probably cost {2} less as a rare. Do we want to add 'another' so she doesn't trigger herself? Not a power concern, so much as a clarity issue. Card selection.

Yiiikes. Isli, Muse of Fabacin keeps all your positive auras on the battlefield as long as she survives… and that's her weak mode. She also lets re-cast your Mire Blight, Spinal Graft, Yoke of the Damned, Stab Wound, Quag Sickness and Kagemaro's Clutch. That's a lot of recursion for a two-drop. Imagine giving her Indestructibility. You'll have to cast a Doom Blade in response to her trigger to ever kill her. What is blue about this card?

Keeper of Songs Unheard will let you draw handfuls of cards at a time. Anticipate becomes Ancestral Recall. Magma Jet also draws you 2 extra cards. Bow of Nylea lets you Tidings every round and Prognostic Sphinx draws you 3 each attack. Collected Company lets you keep the four cards you don't put on the battlefield. Even Temple of Enlightenment draws you a card. Oh and a single Ardent Plea draws your whole deck.

Seems like effects that care about the bottom of your library are a trap.

Do people know that alcohol is a depressant? On this plane, I guess it's not. It revs you up. Okay.

The haste and 'must attack' are useful and flavorful, respectively. I like that Liquor Peddler can advantage you and disadvantage your opponent (or vice-versa if you're sloppy), and that she can give herself haste. 2/3 might be better so she can kill some 2/2s that are forced to attack into her.

Why does she untap a creature during its controller's turn before it has attacked? It should already be untapped. And why does she only serve the weakest creatures? Is this a Drop of Honey update? Is Drop of Honey worthy of an homage 20 years later?

My first instinct was to be offended that Renew is a cheaper, commoner Make a Wish, but I'm actually glad it's cheaper. Renew is more comparable to Divination at this cost. Since you don't get to choose what you get back, and you're more likely to get back cards that were better earlier in the game, it probably doesn't need to cost much more. I'm not as excited about this being common, only because the procedure of randomly selecting two cards from your graveyard can be as cumbersome as shuffling.

Serenity Seal is a more interesting model for seals. Instead of just being an instant you play before you need, there's an obvious purpose to it sticking around. Cool. I wonder if it should cost {1}{G} to cast and another {1}{G} to sack, but I'm not remotely sure that's better.

In what kind of environment would this be a fair common? It needs to have enough artifacts and/or enchantments to warrant inclusion, but some blocks that focus on those card types also make it harder to answer them, so they can remain relevant (Theros being the most recent example).

Tavern Troublemaker grabs onto the rare moment when you make a player discard during their draw step when they've got no other cards in hand, and both simplifies it, and smoothes the sting a bit. You're down a card, and you know you won't draw an answer as soon as you'd have hoped, but at least you don't get your hopes crushed by drawing what you needed and then sending it away forever.

Putting the effect on a death trigger means generally you can choose to avoid the effect when it would inconvenience you most, but your opponent might sacrifice it to hit you when you're most vulnerable. Seems like a strong common.

Check out the crazy can of worms Jenesis helped Ipaulsen avoid (I wouldn't have caught that).

Una Rioghain reduced control over her own loyalty, like Sarkhan the Mad or Garruk Relentless. Either creatures ETB or they don't. The ability you'll be activating until she stumbles upon 7+ loyalty will likely make a creature or so, and can build her up, as does playing creatures, or better yet—token makers. Her ultimate is similarly passive: It definitely won't win you the game immediately like most. In fact, it's probably just going to gain you 4 life per turn as you resume hitting her +0 ability.

That's not a bad card in terms of power level and should appeal to some players, though it does feel distinctly indistinct for a planeswalker. I'm not seeing anything green here. Una could be blue-white, or mono-white. Note that the card advantage Una provides comes from your piles of 1/1s trading with real creatures.

Vigilant Harper is a targeted Second Sunrise on a stick, that can save one of your dying creatures and retrigger its ETB/LTB effects. It's unfortunate that you can't both use the flash to surprise block and save a creature. I can't help but think that if this just regenerated its target, it would be simpler and let players live the dream. Depends on the set it's in.

Visit the Meadhall is a little weird. What is it about 2 life that's worth a card? In fairness, older sets would have worded this "Draw cards equal to half the life you gained this turn, rounded down" and this reads much better (though I can't guarantee it passes templating). Anyhow, by itself, you get 2 life and a card, which is pretty disappointing for {1}{W}{W}, but if you can gain 4 life elsewhere, it's suddenly quite good. How many life gain cards do you play to ramp up your Meadhalls? Interesting. White doesn't usually get to draw multiple cards, but when we do allow it, an uncommon that cares about life gain seems like a good place to start.

Watchworthy Singer borrows the equipment template for a creature you attach to another creature to boost it. You can still attack with either creature, tap them, or block with them, completely independently—just as you could with soulbond—it's just that one is enhancing the other. I suppose two Singers could support each other. I suppose one Singer could support the other, and the other could support something completely different. Which could support the first Singer if it also had a support ability. I like how simple this mechanic is, though I'm starting to see why soulbond works the way it does. Also, this can draw you a ton of cards if you can keep supporting creatures with it and getting them killed. Come to think of it, Ashnod's Altar combos impressively with Watchworthy Singer.

---

So many cool cards this week. In fairness, it's easy to get excited about cards that offer card advantage, but still.

Is card selection a form of card advantage? If I rummage away a Mountain for a Lightning Bolt, I'm not technically up a card, but I am up a relevant card. How's that different from the virtual card advantage of having a single creature big enough to trade with 2 opposing creatures?

Thanks to Pasteur for rendering the cards.