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 an uncommon enchantment or sorcery card for this illustration. Bonus points for expressing 'punk' and/or 'kinship' (not the keyword).
Soulbind 1B
ReplyDeleteEnchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant two creatures
When either enchanted creature dies, destroy the other.
This started as a mono-red card representing a Romeo and Juliet style tragic love story, but it ended up fairly close to Chime of Night.
Fun idea, but there's no way that the first time "enchant two creatures" appears as rules text it's going to be at uncommon.
Delete"When ~ enters the battlefield, pair enchanted creature to target creature.
DeleteWhen either creature dies, destroy the other."
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DeleteI like Pasteur's solution a lot. Based on the soulbond template, it doesn't have to target-- it could be:
DeleteEnchant creature
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you may pair enchanted creature with another unpaired creature.
When either of those creatures dies, destroy the other.
It's a lot of verbiage for what's basically a very elegant and cool idea, but it does work-- though defining what happens when one creature gets bounced or Act of Treasoned might be a little tricky.
Alternately you could do it very cleanly as a sorcery, if you're willing to rely on players remembering that the effect exists and what it does:
Pair two target creatures. (They remain paired as long as they're both on the battlefield.) When either of the paired creatures dies, destroy the other.
"Enchant two creatures" uses real world English to convey the exact point. Pairing muddles the concept.
DeleteI assume the concern is over LSPs not fully understanding the ins-and-outs of enchanting permanents. Pairing has the same problem in that it requires both magic-based vocabulary words to do it.
This is a case where (I feel) the artisan affinity for magic-speak is shooting itself in the foot.
@Mike-- I think for most of us, the main problem with "enchant two creatures" is "where do you put the enchantment card"... i.e. how do you physically show which two creatures are enchanted? I'd argue that pairing (if executed well) would be more intuitive for LSPs.
DeleteI suppose Spellweaver Volute shows that "enchant something weird and hard to represent" is do-able... but a rare from Future Sight isn't exactly the strongest justification for making an uncommon that works this way.
Instead of using the Pairing terminology, it could just be a Sorcery with: "Choose two target creatures. When one dies, destroy the other (this effect lasts indefinitely)."
DeleteIt can lead to memory issues, but it's an effect that actively encourages you to end it by destorying one of the creatures, and thus will often not last for too long.
Um, how about overlapping them if they're on the same side of the table, and making a column I they aren't?
DeleteIt's only three cards, one of which would normally be 80% covered up by the thug it's enchanting anyways
*thing
DeleteLol
Just to clarify, I'm fine with enchant two creatures at uncommon if we pretend it's not the first time that it happened, or that it's part of a horizontal cycle in the set, etc. But without that context, the first time we see that particular bit of rules text (which I much prefer to pairing language) it's not uncommon.
DeleteUnlikely Partnership 4RR
ReplyDeleteEnchantment (U)
Whenever a source you don’t control would deal damage to an opponent or a creature or planeswalker an opponent controls, you may have it deal double that damage instead.
Reminds me of Bitter Feud. "Hey, let's you and him fight."
DeletePretty much, yeah, although a bit more blanket in multiplayer for adding incentive for everyone to punch everybody else but you. It also has the interesting side effect of letting you kick opponent's Pyroclasms up a notch to deal 4 to their own guys, or their Earthquake to hit their face for 12 instead of the 6 you're taking.
DeleteOoh... that's neat. A one-sided Furnace of Rath that relies on you getting other players to attack each other. I bet you could shave a mana if you wanted.
DeleteI'm not totally getting the flavor, though. Is the unlikely partnership between you and whoever's attacking your opponent? Or does the card itself represent one of the partners?
You and the guy who's attacking the third opponent, yeah.
DeleteDebt of Loyalty would be a good fit for this art.
ReplyDeleteTrying out a few ideas:
Rebellious Streak 2R
Enchantment- Aura (Uncommon)
Enchant creature
Whenever you attack enchanted creature's controller with a creature that costs more than enchanted creature, gain control of enchanted creature until end of turn. It becomes tapped and attacks the same player.
Symbiance 1G
Sorcery (Uncommon)
Pair two target unpaired creatures you control and put a +1/+1 counter on each of them. As long as you control both of those creatures, they remain paired and each of them gains the other's activated and triggered abilities.
Love of the Dragon 1R
Enchantment- Aura (Uncommon)
Enchant non-Dragon creature
Enchanted creature has flying and haste.
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 as long as you control a Dragon.
Feedback much appreciated, especially as to whether any of these designs work to tell a story with the art. Also uncertain as to the templating on the first two...
DeleteCool designs! I think they all work with the art and have good lore.
DeleteSymbiance and Rebellious Streak certainly have a few wording issues. Well, Symbiance probably needs to be part of a bigger cycle so some rules changes/explanations can be made for it.
Rebellious Streak is tricky also. I think the approximate card gameplay would work better as an enchantment on your big creature, stealing one of their smaller ones every turn.
Otherwise, maybe:
Enchant creature an opponent controls
1R: Gain control of enchanted creature. Activate this ability only as a sorcery and only if you control a creature with greater power.
Love of the Dragon could lose "non-dragon" and still be fair - none of the bonuses are particularly powerful when added to a dragon; and I assume changelings aren't an issue.
DeleteRe-template of Rebellious Streak, inspired by Zachariah's suggestions:
DeleteRebellious Streak 2R
Enchantment- Aura (Uncommon)
Enchant creature an opponent owns
Enchanted creature has haste.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a creature with greater power than enchanted creature, gain control of enchanted creature until end of turn and untap it.
@Pasteur: "Non-dragon" is my favorite part of that design! I'm thinking of the flavor as representing a humanoid (on Tarkir maybe?) who becomes so enamored with dragons (or with a particular dragon) that they change their appearance to imitate one. It's my attempt at conveying both "kinship" and "punk", but that part probably didn't come through very well.
Coat of Wings 1WW
ReplyDeleteEnchantment
Creatures with flying you control get +1/+1 for each other creature you control with flying. (For example, if you control three creatures with flying, they each get +2/+2.)
Very clever call-out! This certainly evokes kinship well. I'm guessing it would not be broken at 1W, since it's only better than Favorable Winds when you have 3 or more fliers out.
DeleteI'm having trouble deciding whether I prefer this in white or blue. Blue strikes me as a slightly better fit for the mechanic in terms of flavor and previous cards, but it really seems to clash with the color scheme of the art.
I would keep this white, because even though rewarding flying is more blue, pumping creatures (ideally) shouldn't be. Give blue in the same set a flying-Coastal Piracy, if need be.
DeleteDragon Tamer-RWU
ReplyDeleteCreature-Faerie-Rare
Flying
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a 1/1 red Dragon creature token with flying and defender unto the battlefield.
When CARDNAME dies, put five +1/+1 counters on target Dragon creature. If that creature has defender, it loses defender.
3/3
I don't know what colors to put this in. It's a faerie, so it wants to be blue. It a dragon, so it wants to be red. But it's forcing that dragon to be a defender, so does that make it white? What are some of your opinions?
I have a bunch of comments and suggestions on this card, mostly because I really like it as a design.
DeleteFirst of all, the card tells a truly awesome story! If it were my design, I'd push for it (and the Dragon token???) to be legendary.
I assume that the 1/1 defender represents the dragon when it's young? Otherwise I would expect it to be 3/3 at least-- the dragon in the art is much bigger than the dragon-tamer even while she's alive.
Depending on what you think best fits the flavor and gameplay, you could consider replacing "dies" with "leaves the battlefield".
RWU seems like exactly the right color combination to put this in. There's a case to be made for RGU as well-- red occasionally gets defender / lose-defender effects at higher rarity. Flavor-wise the card feels a bit green to me, but there's not much here to justify it mechanically. I also love how the RWU colors help tell the story-- the "tamer" part is classic WU in identity, but when it dies the common enemy color (Red) is unleashed.
Finally: I think the cost is at least 1 mana too low, even for an aggressively developed card. If the opponent isn't playing Wraths, he or she will have to spend a removal spell on the Dragon at some point *and* separately deal with a 3/3 flyer. Also, in decks with sacrifice outlets this can become a 6/6 flying Dragon at any time, which is massively overpowered for 3 mana. My guess for an accurate cost would be 2RWU.
I associate faeries as being 2/2s more than 3/3s. I agree with Ipaulsen this could be a cool legendary; otherwise I think just UR color combination would be fine.
DeleteFor balancing reasons, I could also see this being more attractive if it put the full-size dragon into play, and then this creature dying only removed defender. Here's a very short version of textbox:
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a dragon onto the battlefield.
Dragon creatures you control have defender.
I would go with - RWU 3/1, both creatures legendary, and "leaves the battlefield". It's a lot of text, but easy to understand. LTB lets it interact with blink in U/W, and both having one toughness means it's threatening card advantage but it's easier to sweep both.
DeleteThis is a neat card, and I like Zachariah's suggestion a lot as a way to give you the big dragon up front.
Delete@lpaulsen: I was going to make it a legendary, I was just tired that night and didn't have enough creative juice left to come up with a name. The 1/1 defender was supposed to represent how the tamer made the dragon really docile. I'm not really sure how big to make the dragon for flavor purposes, but it's something worth changing.
DeleteI know some other people mentioned this, but the Vorthos in me wants this to stay a death trigger. "The dragon becomes enraged when it's master dies!" is a much better story than "The dragon becomes enraged when it's master decides to leave for tea time!" That might be exaggerated, but that's my opinion.
@Zachariah Howell: This would simplify things a lot, but this is a one on one relationship, or "kinship". One tamer, One dragon. Making all of my dragons have defender ruins that a little. I feel like spelling this story out to players.
I don't want to make the dragon automatically a 6/6, because that would be 9 power spread across 2 creatures for 3 mana. Plus I like the explosion that the dragon experiences when it's tamer dies. This faerie is obviously using magic to control this dragon, and once she dies, her spell will go away, and the dragon is free to rampage.
@Pasteur: 3/1 sounds pretty good to me. So does legendary. As I'm typing, I keep going back and forth on the whole LTB and death trigger. I'd like to keep it a death trigger for now. I need a good legendary name for both of them though.
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DeleteCelise Dragontamer-RWU
DeleteLegendary Creature-Faerie-Rare
Flying
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a legendary 1/1 red Dragon creature token with flying and defender named Maylanth unto the battlefield.
When CARDNAME leaves the battlefield, put five +1/+1 counters on target Dragon creature. If that creature has defender, it loses defender.
3/1
I wonder if the docile flavor could be captured with fewer words by just giving it 0 power instead of using Defender:
DeleteWhen CARDNAME etb, put a legendary 0/1 red Dragon creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
When CARDNAME ltb, put five +1/+1 counters on target Dragon creature.
I looked at the challenge again and saw that you were asking for an uncommon enchantment or sorcery, in which I failed. I'll post something different later.
ReplyDeleteBut your current design is so cool!
DeleteEverybody's designs get rendered regardless of whether they fit the challenge, so don't feel that you have to scrap the Dragon Tamer.
I believe-- and Jay can correct me if I'm wrong about this-- that the "challenge" is meant mostly as a prompt to help generate design ideas, in the spirit of "restrictions breed creativity".
Right on both counts.
DeleteI guess I won't change my design then. Thanks for all the positive feedback! I really do appreciate it.
DeleteI will review one submission from everyone who submits, regardless of its conformity to the challenge. I will criticize relative to the challenge, so not fitting will reduce the value of the criticism (relatively speaking), but if you don't find a better design to submit, go ahead and submit.
DeleteTaming a Dragon 1RW
ReplyDeleteSorcery (U)
Target creature you control gains flying until end of turn.
Untap target creature and gain control of it until end of turn. That creature gains haste and flying until end of turn.
Neat twist on Act of Treason effects. I like how requiring a creature of your own to target helps balance the power level.
DeleteThe Vorthos in me wonders why the dragon has to be granted flying, and how this card works when stealing, say, a Craw Wurm. But I don't see a good way around this quibble without damaging how the card works mechanically.
Maternal Instinct 1G
ReplyDeleteEnchantment - Aura
Enchant creature you control
Creatures you control other than enchanted creature have hexproof.
Sacrifice CARDNAME: Regenerate each creature you control.
Maternal Instinct 2G
DeleteEnchantment - Aura
Enchant creature you control
Enchanted creature gets +0/+2. Other creatures you control have hexproof.
Sacrifice CARDNAME: Regenerate each creature you control.
I think this reads better.
Asceticism (roughly) as an Aura? I like it! Great flavor too-- I like how it focuses on the dragon (most of our other designs seem to be focused on the humaniod).
DeleteI like the original design somewhat better-- it seems cleaner. Is it intentional that sacrificing Maternal Instinct also regenerates the enchanted creature?
2nd part - yeah, quite intentional, though maybe confusing since it doesn't mesh with the first part. Put it felt like random aura needed a bit more to be any good.
DeleteYou could well be right about the cleaner design, as second basically has trinket text. Going with first again; it's just gonna be a weird aura..
Find common ground. 3W
ReplyDeleteEnch (Unc)
Creatures with flying can't block other creatures with flying. The same is true for lifelink, first strike, and vigilance.
Rough first pass. I selected white evergreen keywords that overlap with each other color (in order). Not sure what deck would want this...oh wait...Slivers and/or Kjeldoran Skynights?..
So the flavor is that flying creatures won't fight with each other because they've "found common ground" (so to speak)? Very interesting. This is going to be a tough effect to exploit, though-- even when the opponent plays creatures with the appropriate keyword(s), those creatures will get harder to block as well.
DeleteIs there some way to convey the same concept with a mechanic that works mostly, or exclusively, to your own benefit?
"Creatures with flying you control can't be blocked by other creatures with flying. The same is true for blah-dee-blah"
DeleteOr some such?
Dragonfriend
ReplyDelete1W
Enchantment
As long as you control a dragon, prevent the first 5 damage that would be dealt to you every turn.
I went through a lot of designs before settling on this one. I liked the others but they were way beyond Uncommon. This one might be pushing it...
ReplyDeleteKaalia's Calling (Uncommon)
3WBR
Sorcery
Choose one —
• Put a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying onto the battlefield. You gain 5 life.
• Put a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying and haste onto the battlefield.
• Put a 6/6 black Demon creature token with flying onto the battlefield. You lose 5 life.
I absolutely love this!
DeleteOooh, beautiful.
DeleteThe black one seems awful compared to the other two (which are both solid depending on the board state). Any time you really need a 6/6 blocker rather than a 5/5 blocker, you likely can't afford to take 5 and maybe would even rather gain life. The fact that they're all so close to each other in size and stats I feel like hurts the card, although it's a really neat concept.
DeleteVery cool! I agree with Aura that the Demon seems bad relative to the other two (and the Dragon is much better than the angel unless you're really on the ropes).
DeleteIn lieu of the life gain/loss, what about something like first strike + lifelink on the Angel, haste on the Dragon, and nothing on the Demon? (In addition to flying, of course.) It's still unlikely that anyone would choose the Demon over the Dragon, but it's a step in the right direction.
I agree with all these points. The 6/6 is the weakest one. But if one of the three options has to be the weakest one (and I think that's nearly guaranteed) I prefer it be the 6/6 creature. I don't think it'll never be the choice, because Commander has more life to play with and since it's tied to Kaalia the Vast, I just assumed it would be a Commander product card. If this were a Rare I could add keywords to the Angel and Demon and play around with balancing factors. But this is only an Uncommon. And I can't see a 6/6 flier at uncommon that also has some additional upside, Last point, this seems like a design Melvin/Mel will pay extra attention to, so I can't really develop things like having the life loss and life gain be different numbers. I already worry that Melvin/Mel will dislike that in order to have the tokens go 4/4 to 5/5 to 6/6 listed them outside of their usual color wheel order.
DeleteWildheart Angel 3W
ReplyDeleteCreature - Angel (U)
Flying
Soulbond with Dragons (You may pair this creature with another unpaired dragon when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
As long as Wildheart Angel is paired with a dragon creature, each of those creatures has +2/+2 and haste.
3/3
This is probably the best design I've seen for how well it fits the feel of the art. There's also some cool color-pie bending going on, where it's OK for a white card to grant haste because of the Dragon requirement.
DeleteThe challenge was going for an enchantment or sorcery, but as we've said above, that shouldn't disqualify any design. I like this one a lot-- despite actual amount of text, it's grokkable enough that it feels really clean.
I like the use of soulbond here. I really don't understand why this is giving a non-white ability when their are numerous options available. For example, vigilance. Plus, a lot of dragons already have haste.
DeleteNich: hasty, dragon-loving angels are far more punk.
DeleteForbid WB
ReplyDeleteSorcery
Choose two target creatures controlled by the same player that don't share a colour or a creature type.
That player exiles one of them.
A fool's paradise.
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Deleteoh shit, i forgot to make it ~pretty~
Deletealso there's already a card called forbid, so let's just get more blatant with the theming here...
Forbidden Love {W}{B}
Sorcery
Choose two target creatures controlled by the same player that don't share a colour or a creature type.
That player exiles one of them.
A fool's paradise.
Somewhere between an (exiling) Edict and an Unmake? Seems solid.
DeletePeer Pressure {2}{R}
ReplyDeleteSorcery (Uncommon)
Gain control of target creature that shares a keyword with a creature you control. Untap those creatures. Until end of turn, they gain haste and menace.
The wording is a little unclear but the idea gets across. Any suggestions on wording would be appreciated.
The card isn't meant to be fully-serious, but I do think the basic idea - a restrictive but cheap Act of Treason - is nice. The flavor is that a creature of mine that shares something in common with a creature of yours convinces it to join me for a bit and work together as nuisances.
Originally this was {1}{R} and had no other bells-and-whistles besides being 'a restrictive but cheap Act of Treason'. I switched it to the current version to solve the wording issue (where it wasn't clear which creature untapped and gained haste). What do you guys think of the solution?
DeleteJust a quick note, that name is already taken (on a weird card).
DeleteRenders have been sent.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brian.
Delete