Friday, July 15, 2016

Weekend Art Challenge 071516—Conditional Evasion Mechanics

Hello Artisans,
Anastase here! This week's challenge is about finding new conditional evasion mechanics.

Evasion mechanics allow you to deal damage to your opponent even though they control some vanilla defending creatures. Flying, "cannot be blocked," intimidate, and skulk are all evasion mechanics.

Conditional evasion, however, works by convincing your opponent to choose not to block, usually from the fear of losing too much value. First strike, menace, and deathtouch are examples that fit.

Each Artisan is allowed one submission only, and has to specify the rarity of his or her card as well as the art for which it is designed for.

by SirTiefling
by young-june choi
Bonus points for designing a common card.

You can update your submission as many times as you want!

I wish you good crafting, Artisans!

36 comments:

  1. (Art 2)
    Battle-Scream Barbarian
    3R
    Creature - Human Barbarian (C)
    Rage (Prevent all damage that would be dealt to this creature as long as it's attacking.)
    3/2

    Similar to/inspired by Armored Transport, but invulnerable to mid combat burn spells as well.


    Also, I wouldn't really call first strike conditional evasion since it's so much more (particularly since it is so good on defense).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd be curious to see if an environment could be developed around this keyword. Might be tricky.

      First strike is more than just conditional evasion, but it's also conditional evasion.

      Delete
  2. ART 1

    Thief's stroll UB
    Common enchantment
    Target creature has RECKLESS.(this creature can not be blocked and whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player it deals that much damage to its controller.

    ART 2

    Obrik, the rebel king GR
    Creature Rare 2/2
    -Reckless
    -Creatures you control with power less than or equal to Obrik, the rebel King have reckless

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The first part of Reckless makes the ability unconditional evasion. If you remove that…

      Delete
    2. I see what you mean..how's this:


      ART 1

      Thief's stroll UB
      Common enchantment - aura
      Enchanted crreature has RECKLESS.(whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player it deals that much damage to its controller.)

      ART 2

      Obrik, the rebel king GR
      Legendary Creature Rare 2/2
      -Reckless
      -Creatures you control with power less than or equal to Obrik, the rebel King have reckless.

      ***

      Delete
    3. Was that ability supposed to be "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to another creature, it deals that much damage to that creature's controller", or something like that?

      As written you have a sort of... inverse conditional evasion, where the defender doesn't want to block, but rather because there's a REWARD for not blocking (in terms of damage to the attacker!)

      While that's interesting, I assume it wasn't your intention because Obrik would be extremely underpowered. (Also it has problems because it encourages not attacking.)

      Delete
    4. I see your point. I think it's a type of evasion because it requires your opponent to think about the gains of not blocking. So, if the ability allows for this dynamic you evade.

      I thought about Obrik and decided that he wasn't supposed to be a game changer. I can see him in a fun GR commander deck or in an aggro zoo or burn deck where you're typically ahead on life by the time you play him. As you go to attack, sure you might get blocked but your opponent may let you through thinking that they rather have you take two damage to 'catch up' when in reality once their behind in life reckless becomes more powerful.

      Delete
    5. I don't think a strictly downside mechanic wants to be keyworded. I could see Ruinous Minotaur et al once or twice a set, but not more common than that.

      Delete
  3. Art 1
    1R
    Rebellion Infiltrator
    Creature - Human Rogue
    2/2
    Quickdodge (When this attacks, any source that deals damage to this turn deals 1 damage instead.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This feels like a really frustrating mechanic.

      Delete
    2. Less than R Stech's Rage, though?

      Delete
    3. Is it reducing damage dealt to CARDNAME, or to anything? I intepreted it as the latter, i.e., this is a 1/2 while attacking. If it's just CARDNAME, Absorb-while-attacking sounds reasonably developable.

      Delete
  4. Flitting Urchin 1B (Art 1)
    Creature - Human Rogue (u)
    When CARDNAME becomes blocked, draw a card and lose 1 life.
    Dash - U
    2/1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good.
      Not sure dash improves it, especially blue dash.
      If not for the art, I could also see:

      Flitting Urchin 1U (Art 1)
      Creature - Human Rogue (u)
      When CARDNAME becomes blocked, draw a card.
      2/1

      Delete
  5. Moonlighting Princess {1}{U}
    Creature - Elf Rogue (C)
    When Moonlighting Princess becomes blocked, draw 2 cards.
    All doors open to privilege.
    1/1

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Art #1.
      I love conditional evasion designs... thanks for this fun challenge!

      Delete
    2. The flavor on this definitely connects better than Drelnoch.

      Delete
    3. A scaled-down Saprazzan Heir? Nice. Mono-blue elf?

      Delete
    4. Oh yeah, I didn't even think about how weird a blue elf is... and wow, I knew about Drelnoch but not Saprazzan Heir. Welp.

      1G seems out of colour based on those two historical examples, but maybe it'd work. Green isn't really about evasion, thought, right?

      Delete
  6. Art #2

    Unstoppable Goliath 4RR
    Creature - Giant Berserker (R)
    Haste
    CARDNAME can't be blocked if its power is less than defending player's life total.
    7/4

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Probably too strong at this cost; changed to 5RR for a 9/5.

      Delete
    2. Neat! "Come on... you don't have to block me..."

      Another possible text box to make this a little less devastating: "CARDNAME can't be blocked if the combined power of all attacking creatures is less than defending player's life total."

      Delete
    3. Would playtest both versions, but I lean toward Ipaulsen's suggestion.

      Delete
  7. Art 1

    Distracting Shill 1U
    Creature - Human Rogue (C)
    Whenever CARDNAME becomes blocked, fateseal 1.
    1/2

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like this a lot. I imagine there might be a set's worth of cards that hit this level of safety on fateseal — if so, this is a good place to start.

      Delete
  8. Proposing two opposite mechanics...

    Streetwise Infiltrator 2U
    Creature- Human Rogue (Uncommon)
    1/2
    Urbane (This creature can't be blocked by any combination of creatures with 1 or fewer colors among them.)
    Whenever CARDNAME deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.

    Defiant Berserker 2R
    Creature- Human Berserker (Uncommon)
    2/1
    Barbaric (This creature can't be blocked by any combination of creatures with 2 or more colors among them.)
    Whenever CARDNAME deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Urbane mechanically seems pretty neat, but parsing it really is quite an uphill struggle.

      Assuming Intimidate/landwalk were canned because of how binary good/useless they were against some decks; this seems like it would have a little more play, since decks on average should have 2+ colors.

      Delete
    2. I would classify both as unconditional evasion… almost. One-on-one, it's like flying or intimidate. It's the way that changes with multiple blockers—thus endangering a 2:1 like menace does—that qualifies them.

      Urbane gets my intuition's vote.

      Delete
    3. I really like the multi-blocker evasion concept.

      'This creature can't be blocked by multiple creatures unless they all share a creature type.'

      Delete
  9. Fervant Champion 1G
    (Choi)
    Warrior (cmn)
    Chosen (While CARDNAME is blocked, spells that target it cost you 0 to cast.)
    2/2

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neat mechanic, sort of like Heroic but giving you mana instead of additional value. Like it a lot!

      Delete
    2. Is this meant to threaten surprise Giant Growths and the like?

      How much value does this mechanic add compared to simply attacking and casting your spells postcombat?

      Delete
    3. How about a less dirt cheap trick like Spiteful Motives?

      Delete
    4. Or Might of Oaks or Epic Proportions!

      Delete