Friday, November 20, 2015

Weekend Art Challenge 112015 -- Bramvan / Julian_Faylona

Weekend Art Challenge

OK, Artisans. Jay is on vacation, so I'll be substituting this week. 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. I'll do the renders if no one else volunteers by Monday.

 [A]

[B]

We're bending a little sci-fi this week. 

Story mode challenge: Design a card for either of those arts. Make sure you note which art you're designing for.

Story mode+ challenge: Choose a RoboRosewater card, pair it with one of those arts, and modify it to your heart's content. Points awarded for creative solutions to keeping the spirit of the card while making it functional and interesting. Please include a link to the RR card that you're fixing for reference.

Good luck!

24 comments:

  1. Story mode challenge:

    Fractal Formulator {2}
    Artifact Creature - Construct (uncommon)
    0/0
    ~ ETBs with a +1/+1 counter on it.
    Whenever a player casts a spell with CMC equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on ~, double the number of +1/+1 counters on ~.

    Store mode Plus challenge:

    Enamelpane Trestle
    Artifact {6} (Mythic Rare)
    At the beginning of your upkeep, you may return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.
    Ensouled – Reveal your hand: If you have five or more artifact creature cards in hand, ~ becomes a 5/5 Juggernaut artifact creature UEOT.

    Based on Amel'rpen Threestel. The name is based on some automatic spelling corrections from that "card"'s name :)

    Both cards have the first art ("bramvan"). The first submission is what I first thought of when I looked at the art, but I do so love "fix this autogenerated card" challenges that I couldn't help but enter. We had a fantastic one over on Multiverse 3 years ago.

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    1. Possible problem: at the moment you can cast Fractal Formulator turn 2, then on turn 3 cast a one-drop creature, respond with two one-drop instants, and end up making your Formulator 8/8. Is that a problem? I think it probably is.

      A wording that fixes that by using an Intervening If, but is less pleasant to read:

      Whenever a player casts a spell, if that spell's CMC is equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on ~, double the number of +1/+1 counters on ~.

      Which is better?

      Delete
    2. Oh cool, I like that.

      The first version is more awesome, but I think people will be confused, I think the second is less ambiguous and only slightly ugly.

      Delete
  2. Strings, the One; Art A

    The Core of Strings

    Legendary Land

    {2}, {T}: Add {4} to your mana pool. Activate this ability only during your upkeep.

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  3. https://twitter.com/RoboRosewater/status/656913986835914753; Art A

    Etherglass Lab Station 1WW
    Enchantment (R)
    Whenever a player casts a spell, you may put a +1/+1 counter on target permanent that shares a type with that spell.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Hm. Cool.
      Both wordier / more confusing and lower power than the original. I assume that's deliberate, to remove the combo with cheap cantrip instants/sorceries? The original is reminiscent of Jeskai Ascendancy. No untap so not so much potential for infinite combos, but in exchange it pumps with counters and triggers off any player's spells. Your version basically only does anything on creature spells, making it seem green (though that doesn't fit the art or name).

      It's a pity that in the current Standard, the permanent type other than creature that's most useful to have counters on is lands, because you'll be able to Awaken them later; but lands are the one permanent type that can't trigger this card.

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    3. It is deliberately lower power. As far as more confusing, I felt that would be more "in the spirit of the challenge" than something simple and straightforward.

      Yes, it is unfortunate that Theros just rotated.

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  4. I'll do the renders this week.
    -------------------------------------------------------
    Racka Rornoshy-Land-Uncommon
    If CARDNAME is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it on the battlefield.

    OR

    Racka Rornoshy-Land-Mythic
    CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
    Tap: Exile CARDNAME, then return it to the battlefield under your control.

    RoboRosewater reference:
    https://twitter.com/RoboRosewater/status/654730074508275717

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    1. Heh!

      I think both options are lacking something.
      The mythic is good for triggering landfall. But so were Ghost Town or Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, both of which also produced mana.

      The uncommon is... intriguing. Useful under certain specific circumstances, I'll grant you. The original thread mentioned Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth; similarly Chromatic Lantern and Joiner Adept. Also helps with Scute Mob / Dragonmaster Outcast. But... still... that's a tiny number of cards to combo with a card which could otherwise be treated as having literally no text box.

      I guess it's like Darksteel Relic, which... has a place in the game, at least. Okay, I guess...

      Delete
    2. I could make the uncommon a legendary and tap for colorless. Or make it cost one or two life and tap for colorless.Could make it Must-Include card for all decks, which is something a card never wants to be.

      The mythic, to make it different from Ghost Town and ilk, tac on "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, add 1 to your mana pool." (A quick gatherer search revealed there was no landfall creatures that untaped a land.)

      Mostly I just wanted the cards to reflect the original as much as possible.

      Delete
    3. Oh indeed, the original is beautiful in its simplicity and seeming uselessness. It may well be that the best thing to do with it is just leave it as your uncommon originally looked. I didn't mention Gemstone Caverns but that's the closest to the original I can think of. A Gemstone Caverns that doesn't cost a card but also doesn't make mana has a pleasing simplicity.

      I agree that even "T, Pay 1 life: Add {1}" would probably push it too far towards auto-include in any aggressive deck. 2 life would probably mitigate that, but loses a lot of the pleasing simplicity of the original. It's like Hatching Plans could have had "5UU: Sacrifice ~", but was better without it.

      On your mythic idea, your search probably missed Stone-Seeder Hierophant; but it's not really a problem. I have a deck with Stone-Seeder Hierophant which has a bunch of infinite combos, mostly including Amulet of Vigor. It's not very good, and this card wouldn't push it up to broken.

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    4. Your right, I missed that one. Would it be better to put a tap or ETB effect to produce a colorless mana?

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    5. On your mythic? Either would be fine, I think. "{T}: Add {1}" is a lot more standard, so may as well use that one.

      You could actually do the same on the uncommon, come to think of it. Like Chancellor of the Tangle, add "If you do, at the beginning of your first main phase, add {1} to your mana pool."

      BTW, I think mythic actually isn't the right place for this. Weird combo pieces, and especially cards that don't do anything much on their own, aren't generally right for mythic. WotC also try to avoid mythic lands in general, with only a handful of exceptions: Maze's End, Eye of Ugin, Volrath's Stronghold, and a couple of old broken lands in Vintage Masters. Rare would be better.

      Delete
  5. This is really hard, I like the idea and the art, but neither is giving me any ideas for cards.

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  6. OK, second art:

    Xenoarchaelogist
    G
    Creature - Alien Scout
    {T}: Reveal the bottom card of your library. If it's a land card that can produce colorless mana, put it into your hand, else put it into your graveyard.
    1/1

    I'm not sure how this comes out. I wanted to capture the alien feel with something a little unusual, hence the "bottom of the library" and "land with colorless mana". But something that could be really powerful some of the time, but wouldn't automatically be so, as lands that produce {1} are usually interesting ones, but you can often only have so many of them in a deck. I'm not sure on cost, it'll hit fairly rarely, but does it need to cost more (or put on top of library, or straight onto battlefield?). And colour -- I wanted U, but I thought it had to be G because of the lands, even though G does more with colour and less with colourless.

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    1. Oh, or maybe it should just give you 1 or 2 mana instead, or as well?

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    2. Nice! That does indeed capture an unusual feeling and look like it'll have interesting gameplay. (It's a card that makes Jungle Basin better than Gruul Turf for once! :D)

      Compared with Sindbad / Fa'adiyah Seer, it's possible it might need to cost 2 mana rather than one. OTOH the colourless-mana restriction is significant, so 1 is probably fine. I think into hand is correct - top of library would be frustrating, battlefield I suspect far too powerful (or it might drive the cost way up, at least).

      Blue has quite an association with colourless mana, but I think green is right in this case. And assuming this set has five-colour aliens, I imagine intelligent green aliens will be harder to design than intelligent blue aliens, so there's probably a principle of grab the potentially-green designs into green whenever you can :)

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    3. Thank you, ok, sounds persuasive to me.

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  7. Sorry I've been busy with Dreamscape playtesting and my Girlfriend's Bday so I haven't really made any cards for this challenge.

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    1. It's a pretty busy time of the year. Lot's of holidays and family dinners. And snow. Lots of snow. So don't blame youreself if there's not a lot of submissions.

      How is Dreamscape coming along? Did you nail down some of the creative aspects you were having trouble with?

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    2. Yes its coming along super well. I'll probably be doing a "v1.0" release hopefully in early January.

      Delete
  8. Here's the renders:
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/0vdy6cmytj08xy3/WAC%20Bramvan-Julian_Faylona.mse-set?dl=0

    ReplyDelete