Click
through to see the illustration and design requirements for your
single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants
feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of
times. I will aim to review the most recent submission from each
designer.
Design a creature of type Eye for this art.
Terrifying Beholder 4B
ReplyDeleteCreature - Eye Horror (R)
Non-Eye creatures can't attack.
As an additional cost to block CARDNAME, defending player must discard a card for each creature blocking CARDNAME.
6/3
Intentional that this shuts opponents out of combat unless they have removal?
DeleteIn the spirit of Eyes, this shouldn't affect the opponent's creatures.
DeleteThis symmetry is absolutely intentional. It shuts them out of combat unless they have removal, *or* they block and kill it (3 toughness is not a lot) - but then they'll have to pay the discard price.
DeleteI tried to get as many parallels to the other two Eyes in there without actually making a terrible card. I couldn't find a way to make an interesting, non-terrible design from the old "you control" and "only walls can block this" wording. Which also feels weirdly outdated. As it sits, I think this is a fine rare for limited and a very niche card for sideboarding in a constructed context, potentially.
"Creatures can't attack" is a white ability.
DeleteI imagine this would be incredibly frustrating to play against, but at that statline, probably not game-breaking.
Does the mage playing this card even attack with it, or do they just protect it and win the game on their own terms?
DeleteThis is a strong callback to the first two eyes, but it's a bend for black to prevent attacks, and I see it shutting down games a lot more than enhancing them.
I would argue that "Creatures can't attack", while primarily being white, is also an effect other colors have access to (it's on artifacts, at least). For a thematic design on a rare card, I can live with that bleed. "Bending" the symmetry in your favour (but also taking away some of your control of the situation) strikes me as passably Black.
DeleteIf you get to keep this around in Constructed, sure, it can be frustrating if you can't deal with (but really, if your opponent casts a 3-toughness creature for 5 mana and somehow manages to protect it, kudos to them...), and in Limited I think it will rarely be that you have "own terms" to win the game on that doesn't include literally letting the opponent drawing their entire deck before you draw yours and hoping they have no answers in their deck.
I don't think it necessarily promotes frustrating gameplay to the extent you think, but I can see why you think so.
Evil Eye of Rath
ReplyDelete4B
Creature - Eye
Non-Eye creatures you control can't attack.
CARDNAME can't be blocked by more than one creature.
Whenever CARDNAME becomes blocked, you may switch defending creature's power and toughness until end of turn.
5/4
Templating nit: "Whenever a creature blocks CARDNAME, you may switch that creature's..."
DeleteThe P/T switching ability is neat and fun. Is there any particular reason for putting it on a black Eye? I'd have expected to see it on a "wrestling" or "trickster" themed red creature.
Switching your own p/t feels blue.
DeleteAlways switching your opponents p/t feels red.
Choosing whether or not to somehow feels more black to me. Unsure if that's a good instinct or a color pie bend/break.
This is a strong callback to the original eyes. I'm not sure offensive switching is black, but it's not such a well-defined ability that this is much of a bend. My main concern is why this has two blocking related abilities, especially ones that don't relate to each other.
DeleteBecause I don't know how to word "for each creature you can choose to switch or not switch their p/t"...:X
Delete"Whenever a creature blocks ~, you may switch that creature's p/t."
DeleteRavenous Eye-beast
ReplyDelete4B
Creature - Eye
{T}: If you declared attackers this turn and attacked with no non-eye creatures, target opponent may sacrifice a creature. If they don't, they lose 6 life.
3/6
I like that this calls out the Non-Eye ability but re-designs the restriction so that it's an upside. Is it intentional that another Eye (or untapping / vigilance-granting) is required to turn on the effect? Any reason not to make this just an attack trigger?
DeleteDoh, no that's me sucking at templating. I meant "have an attack step", like, you can't use the ability before you declare attackers even if you declare zero.
Delete"{T}: When you attack with no non-eye creatures this attack step, target opponent may sacrifice a creature. If they don't, they lose 6 life."
Delete?
Can you explain in plain English what actions are occurring when you do this card's ability?
DeleteAre you supposed to attack with Eyes? Are you supposed to not attack with anything? What if you don't control any other creatures? I'm very confused.
Sorry, I hadn't realized this was so difficult to write.
DeleteI mean, something like "target opponent sacrifices a creature out loses 6 life. You can't use this ability if you attack with non-eye creatures"?
Thanks for clarifying.
DeleteYou can {T} to make the opponent choose between sacking a creature and losing 6 life, but you can't attack with non-eye creatures if you do.
Is it important this is a tap ability? You could just trigger at attack: "After you declare attackers, if only Eye creatures are attacking, EFFECT." Or "Whenever ~ attacks, if only Eye creatures are attacking, EFFECT."
I like how you used the old drawback to be a condition on something new. Though Browbeat effects are usually red, this one feels black enough to me, as well as kind of eye-ish.
A trigger would be fine, but I thought it tied into the flavour better if it worked if you *didn't* attack, which made the wording hard.
DeleteTriclopean Horror 4B
ReplyDeleteCreature - Eye (R)
Non-Eye creatures you control can't attack.
CARDNAME can't be blocked except by exactly three creatures.
5/4
Nice and clean, and very faithful to the art and the original Eye designs.
DeleteI'd have expected this to be a 6/3... making it a 5/4 seems substantially weaker, because it lessens the cost of both blocking and not-blocking.
6/3 is probably better because it would let it trade with three Bears, but it also eats substantially more cheap removal this way. I suppose it could work in a set where the common removal spells do 2/4 damage.
DeleteSwitching to 6/3. Also changing name to "Triclopean Fiend" because I don't want to add Horror to the type line.
Joke submission:
DeleteEye of Balls 4B
Eye
Whenever a creature you control dies, put two eyeball counters on Eye of Balls.
~ P/T equal to the number of Eyes plus eyeball counters on permanents you control.
*/*
Triclopean Fiend is a very strong callback to the originals, and probably strong enough to warrant the old drawback. I might allow "three or more creatures," not that anyone would ever block an X/3 with four creatures.
DeleteThird Eye of Kephis 3B
ReplyDeleteCreature - Eye Horror (R)
Flying
Whenever three or more Eye creatures you control attack, you may sacrifice CARDNAME. If you do, destroy all non-Eye creatures.
3/3
For a hypothetical Eye tribal theme, assuming there are enough Eyes in the set not to put the "Eye mechanic" on all of them.
So after paying the trigger you're left with two Eyes... oh, I get it. Interesting.
DeleteNot totally sold on the flavor or the connection with the art, but this is certainly a cool and novel way to do Tribal. I shudder to think of a set that includes enough Eye creatures to support a tribal strategy.
Nice. Third Eye of Kephis is a black rare Phantom Monster with a big kick if you can get enough eyes out. That's enough of a callback to the original eyes, but keeping a more modern sensibility. I'm not going to over-think why a three-eyed monster needs two more eyes to freak out.
DeleteHorde of Eyeballs UB
ReplyDeleteCreature- Eye (Rare)
1/1
CARDNAME can't block.
When CARDNAME deals combat damage to a player, sacrifice it. If you do, draw a card, then discard a card.
1UB: Create a token that's a copy of CARDNAME.
Wow, I guess I didn't get the memo about "Non-Eye creatures you control can't attack".
DeleteGiven that the ability really only shows up on one original design (and one explicit call-out to that design), I'd rather shoot for something that plays and resonates better.
I greatly support ditching that old line. Even if it were on two original cards, they're old enough and weird enough that exploring beholders in Modern Magic can ignore it completely.
DeleteSpeaking of weird, Horde of Eyeballs is. A 1/1 with no evasion that dies when it's saboteur ability triggers and only loots as a result seems terrible. Then again, you can make unlimited copies of it. Like, way way way more copies of it than anyone made of Pack Rat.
Play this on turn 2 and if your opponent doesn't kill it before you untap, you've got two or more forever. Or play it on turn 5 and if they do have removal, you're still set for life. Every copy can make more copies.
That explains why this can't block. That would be annoying. It also explains why this doesn't have evasion. That would be annoying. It also explains why they kill themselves after hitting the opponent. All of those factors greatly limit the usefulness of unlimited 1/1s.
Horde is still a huge sacrifice engine, and that's my only power concern with it. Because at face-value, this only helps in me in two ways: I either makes 20 of them and swing for lethal, or I make just enough to get through with 1 or 2 (including my other creatures) to get some card selection going; it's a great mana sink (notably, worse than infinite clue tokens, in that regard).
Like I said: weird. Which eyes should be.
Mutated informant UB
ReplyDeleteCreature - eye - U
Your opponent plays with their hand revealed for as long as you control mutated informant.
1/3
"The izzet's experiments on the homunculus were thought a failure. The Dimir thought otherwise."
Cool!
DeleteWith a static ability you don't need the "for as long as you control" clause (unlike Stromgald Spy), so the text box can just be
Opponents play with their hands revealed.
I also suspect the ability is more powerful and game-changing than you might expect. I'd suggest making this a rare.
Other than art, what about this is black?
DeleteTelepathy is a bad card, Maritime Guard is a bad card, and I'm pretty sure Wandering Eye never broke anything. My casual pack-cracking Timmy side wants this at uncommon rather than rare. There's a lot of matchups where knowing the opponent's hand is of little to no use anyway.
Telepathy on a Maritime Guard. I wouldn't do that without a reason to want a Telepathy effect in the format (by default we don't, because they ruin half the game's suspense), but if we did, putting on a stick seems wise and 1/3 seems perfect. Honestly—beyond the above note—my only quibble is this could be mono-blue rather than blue-black. Uncommon seems right.
DeleteMalicious Watcher
ReplyDelete1UB (U)
Players play with the top of card of their library revealed.
UB, T: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. If a card revealed in this way has the same name as the top card of a player's library, that player loses 4 life.
1/4
Neat! I'm a big fan of designs that encourage players not to stick 4-ofs in their decks.
DeleteIs it intentional that an opponent can lose life for matching your own top card? This seems strange and non-intuitive to me. I'd recommend "opponents play with the top cards of their libraries revealed" and "for each card revealed this way with the same name as the top card of that opponent's library" as a template.
Also, do you want to include a "nonland" clause here? Otherwise this can be really nasty when it hits basics.
The ability probably also needs to reveal the top card of players' libraries, in case the Eye dies while the ability is on the stack.
DeleteMalicious Watcher exposes an awful lot of information, giving players a bunch to track and removing much of the game's suspense (see above entry). But that's awfully thematic for an eye.
DeleteI share Ipaulsen's instinct to not expose your own cards, mostly because it's not clear why my deck should hurt you and because I'd hate to see a Watcher mirror get ugly, but there's definitely an argument for keeping this more all-players-ish for old times' sake.
You could arguably make the creature's mana cost all blue and its activation cost all black.
Note that this pushes your opponent to play their hands out quickly; Pushes Constructed players to play fewer 4-ofs (but only MW proves strong and present in the metagame); and will mostly only hit land in Limited.
Trioptic Horror 2B
ReplyDeleteCreature - Eye Horror (C)
Tri-Cylopian Horror enters the battlefield with three eyeball counters.
2B, Remove an eyeball counter from Trioptic Horror: Target player discards a card. If a card is discarded this way, Trioptic Horror gains indestructible until end of turn.
3/1
That is a lot of moving parts for a common, not to mention the potential of 3-for-1 card advantage (at instant speed, no less). I'd bump it up to uncommon at the very least.
DeleteWhat is indestructible doing for this card?
Trioptic Horror 3B
DeleteCreature - Eye Horror (U)
Tri-Cylopian Horror enters the battlefield with three eyeball counters.
Remove an eyeball counter from Trioptic Horror: Trioptic Horror gains indestructible until end of turn.
3/1
The indestructible was really going for more of a "the weak spot is it's eyes!" sort of feel. I think that gets totally lost with the discard element
Instead of dying the first time it's hurt, Trioptic Horror dies the fourth time. You get four 3/1s for {3}{B}, in essence. That works (and is very good), but I have to say that I think Phantom Centaur's version would feel even more like progressively weakening a three-eyed thing.
DeleteYay, eyeball counters :)
ReplyDeleteGitaxian Scout
ReplyDeleteCreature- Eye Horror (R)
UB
0/1
Flying
Whenever Gitaxian Scout attacks and isn't blocked, name a nonland card. Target opponent reveals their hand and discards all copies of the named card. If no cards are discarded this way, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card
You don't often see rare 0/1s, but this one has flying and can loot every turn you can keep it unblocked. Or, when an opponent has two of the same card, you can get a 2:1. Or, if they've got an important card, you can choose that instead. Seems weak against W/U and quite strong against green, especially in Limited.
DeleteRepeated name-and-reveal discard (Cabal Therapy) is clever, and name-or-draw discard (Brain Pry) is nice. I don't see the point in combining them. The result is stronger, sure, but does that make it more fun for the players?
Ditch the last two lines, and this repeated name-and-reveal discard is still very interesting. Unique and full of potential. Maybe make it a 1/1 or 0/3 too.
I'm impressed by the strength of the faithful callbacks, and pleased by the innovation of those that chose to ignore the originals. As I said above, if we wanted to make more eyes, it would be as reasonable to ignore the tiny existing precedent here as it was to do the same for werewolves on Innistrad.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious where I'd go with this challenge, so I'll try...
ReplyDeleteTracking Beholder {2}{B}
Creature-Eye (unc)
Flying
{G}: Target creature must block ~ this turn, if able.
3/1
...
<shrugs>
That's an interesting ability on a flier, very green. The art feels very black or black/blue
DeleteMaybe be even red-black, but not green. Agreed.
Delete