Weekend Art Challenge Review 061215—kattnboys

Weekend Art Challenge Review
Design a card for this art that shows one color complimenting, emulating, or mocking an ability primary only in another color. Try not to cross the hazy line into too much color bleed.

I was about to say making a keyword that mentions another undefined keyword is clearly cheating, but then I remembered they've announced menace as a new evergreen mechanic starting with Magic Origins. Menace is the new name for the old Goblin War Drums ability and I must say I'm delighted they finally keyworded that.

Brave Companion can block creatures with menace all on its own. Unflappable is surely not worth keywording any more than 'bury' was back in the day; we simply don't want to nerf an ability like menace often enough to justify naming the nerf. That said, I could totally see Brave Companion as a one-off uncommon in a set just after one with a whole lot of menacing creatures.

Chief's Troll aggression contrasts with Scroll Thief's caution. Despite having the same ability, this Troll will happily attack where the Thief would not. It will die, but quite possibly killing a creature and drawing a card in the process. That's quite good for a common, which is why this needed to cost more than {2}{G}. This will be a lot of players new favorite Giant Growth target. I'm not buying that this art depicts a troll (not without some flavor about powerful disguise magic, which isn't a green thing at all), but the anagram is neat.

Cinderheart Wanderer is not only immune to (mostly red) damage spells, but can gain you life from them. This rare just begs to be put in your red-white deck with Pyroclasms and Spitemares. This art doesn't necessarily look like an efficient 3/3, but I totally buy the vigilance and magical protection.

Delgrifa lets you transmute a creature as you cast it from your hand into another from your library or sideboard with the exact same cost. In addition to that great versatility, it also gives the new creature flash. I question whether the flash bonus was intentional—it's certainly not necessary since playing Mental Magic with all your creatures (Ah, and now I've got the reference) is unique and cool enough on its own. Is this ability green? Questionable, but there's famous precedent: Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest, etc.

Elves of Deep Shadow is an interesting reprint for this challenge. It's a green card, doing a green thing for black, and in a black way. It's also a perfect fit for this art. Nice.

Eyes of the Forest specifically deals with Unsummons and Upheavals. The really cool part is that it also works great with Roaring Primadox and Temur Sabertooth. Unfortunately, this is pretty weak conditional draw since it's usually only responding to a single bounce effect (could this be an enchantment?). Worse, it's effect doesn't even mitigate the pain of losing the mana you spent to cast your creatures in the first place; in fact, it makes it even more likely that you'll have to discard for having too many cards in your hand.

Feywood Dryad takes intimidate and flips it on its head. No wait, it says "can be blocked only by" not "can't be blocked except by." So it's actually quite a bit like intimidate, swapping creatures of the same color for equipped creatures. I love the flavor, that this dryad is weak to metal whether wielded or animated. I do have to caution against making a mechanic so similar to one Wizards just demoted. Intimidate tended too often to be unblockable against some decks and meaningless to others, and 'feystep' here seems like it could have the same problem unless the set is rife with good common artifact creatures or equipment (in which case it's probably not worth four mana).

Grove Witch trumps prowess by growing permanently whenever one of my prowess creatures grows temporarily. Also it's a giant Prodigal Pyromancer. I quite like the first half of that for a rare green card meant to battle {R}{W}{U} decks. I could also see a small rare creature with just the ability to fight repeatedly, as that would be fun to support with Moldervine Cloaks and Giant Growths. (Ulvenwald Tracker and Nightfall Predator being our only comparables.) But gluing both these halves together will necessitate a higher cost and also makes each half less special. I like the templating.

Mesmerize

EDIT: Mesmerize is a mono-white Time Warp. It achieves this effect in a very white way, prohibiting actions like a souped-up Silence. Should white get extra turns? Maybe all colors could in the right situation? If so, should it do it in this very white but much less intuitive way? I'm inclined against. I like the clever angle here, though, and it if it were split into two cards, could be a very fun combo for players.

Hold Still

Hold Still also uses white's law-making to set up a rule to mess with opponents. In this case, you can use it to prevent your opponent from drawing a card and casting any spells (which is why it's costed like Silence with a cantrip), or you could use it to counter a Mind Twist against you. White gets to invent rules, but should it make this rule? Should any color? I can definitely buy it, but that doesn't mean it feels natural or that the game needs it. Thoughts?

Ice-Eye Dryad is just a Runeclaw Bear on its own, but if you can pair it with Frost Breath, or… Old Man of the Sea (yours or your opponent's), it'll grow. And gain you life. I feel like the life gain is there for flavor, but I don't get the story at all. I guess this dryad is really into watching other creatures while they're sleeping. Kind of unfortunate that Entangling Vines exists to muddy the "please play me with other colors" clue.

Okay… So spells can have lifelink as seen by Soulfire Grand Master. Scry isn't a static keyword, but an keyword action, but you could say "and gain the text 'scry 1.'" More likely, you'd just set up a trigger: "Whenever a spell targets Queen's Blessing, scry 1." Quibbles.

My main issue is that this aura does nothing on its own, and what it does when you finally do get to use it is so marginal. Most spells don't benefit from lifelink, and particularly not spells you cast on your own creatures. You don't want to give your opponents' burn spells lifelink or scrying, so clearly you enchant opposing creatures with this aura. This aura named Queen's Blessing.

And then you burn that opposing creature to death, gaining a bit of life and a scry for your card. No, it must be that you're planning to do lots of damage over an extended period of time, benefiting from each increment, but never killing the enchanted creature. But you have to target it, so you're basically trading your Shocks for "gain 2 life and scry 1."

Scion of Envy appears to be a Cairn Wanderer for the living. I'm guessing the awkward template is to avoid surprise situations where someone exiles a Darksteel Colossus, and then suddenly the 3 damage that was sitting harmlessly on my Scion kills it. It's interesting that Scion 'borrows' abilities from both your creatures and your opponents' creatures. Thematically, it might be stronger if she only envied creatures on the other side of the battlefield. I would type this as a shapeshifter, though certainly avatars can do some weird stuff. Does black get to steal abilities from things that are still alive? Philosophically, sure. Mechanically, I'm skeptical.

Seedtime is a green Time Walk conditional on your opponent casting a blue spell during your turn. Most spells, I wouldn't be keen on leaving my mana unspent just in case a Cancel or Unsummon sneaks in there, but for a full extra turn it's totally worth it, at least when your suspicion is warranted. Is taking an extra turn a green thing? Is it not? Historically, that's blue, but I feel like time magic is just as easy to justify in green (and red), philosophically.

Note that as soon as your opponent knows you've got some of these in your deck, they can just cast all their spells during their own turn, and hold their counters until they can cast two at once.

EDIT: This is a reprint. Ha! Nice catch.

EDIT based on the revelation you don't want to target opposing creature with this:
Tabula Rasa is a Clone for one of your creatures that just died. It's a solid fantastic plan B for your killer creature, and with the bonus of an ETB trigger. Replacing the actual card with a token, though, seems annoying compared to just using Cloudshift.

Did we never simplify escort down to entice? I love this mechanic. I think you could remove 'if able' given that it's a relative blocking restriction, getting entice down to two lovely lines. Very cool.

Ticklewood Dryad steals Fog Bank's immunity to combat damage, allowing it to distract one blocker from each of your attacks, which is very cool. The end result is very much like "T: Target creature, at sorcery speed" and "Target creature can't block this turn" but very green (and/or white). Oh wait, it still deals damage? That's confusing. Oh, and it can block anything without dying? I was hoping it was at its best on offense. I'd consider "Prevent all damage dealt to and by ~ while attacking."

Entice, though? Gold.

Tranquility Dryad turns off discard and countermagic against your creatures entirely, and at instant speed, turning your whole deck into Loxodon Smiters. Seems good. I'd rather see one-time hosers with card advantage than long-term hosers, but as a 2/2 rare for {1}{G}{W}, I wouldn't be particularly surprised to see this in a booster pack.

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What a cool bunch of cards! There was some pretty wide interpretation of the challenge, and I confess I'm happy to see that. This challenge was meant to be more of an inspiration point than a restriction, and I'm quite satisfied with the results. Nice work, artisans.

Thanks to Reuben for rendering the cards.