Friday, June 16, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 061617—Abe123

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 common for this art.
Bonus points if it's simple and thematic enough to be a core set common.

31 comments:

  1. One With The Woods
    G
    Enchantment - Aura - Common
    Enchant creature
    Enchanted creature has "T: Add G to your mana pool."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This looks great on paper. Simple, flavorful, and evocative of an old fan favorite. In practice, it's probably mighty weak because you can't get your Elvish Mystic until turn two, and it costs you two cards to do it, one of which was a creature meant for some other purpose. We do need some bad cards, though, so why not bad cards that hit every other note well. Plus it'll combo with the common creature in the set that has "Untap ~ at the beginning of every opponent's turn" or even "Untap ~ at your second main phase."

      Delete
    2. Alternately (although probably uncommon):

      GG
      Enchantment - Aura
      Enchant creature
      Enchanted creature has "T: Add GG to your mana pool."

      Delete
  2. Forest Pass
    Land - C
    Forest Pass enters the battlefield tapped.
    Tap: add G to your mana pool
    Tap, tap a green creature you control: add GG to your mana pool.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suspect that second ability is a bit strong, but we can let Dev decide that. This is intuitive and looks fun. Probably a core set uncommon?

      Delete
    2. I wonder what the rest of the cycle looks like since it's much less reasonable to give this ability to the other colors.

      Maybe we can get out of the mindset that you can't print a colored land outside of a cycle? Hmm.

      Delete
    3. It'd be difficult, I think, to scale the abilities for the different colors. Life gain seems fine, but drawing and damage could be too powerful.

      My initial thought was to ramp in all colors but that probably won't ever happen #whitemage

      Delete
  3. Thicket of Skulls 1G
    Sorcery (Common)
    Look at the top three cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
    Then if you control a swamp, create a 1/1 black skeleton creature token.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hadn't even noticed the skulls in the foreground. Good eye.

      I'm disappointed the second ability is unrelated to the first. Consider:

      Discard the top three cards of your library. You may put a land card from your gy onto the battlefield tapped. If you control a swamp, you may also put a creature card from your gy into your hand.

      That's worse early, but better late, which I think is good for rampant growth+.

      Delete
  4. Into the Woods 1G
    Sorcery
    You may play an additional land this turn.
    Until end of turn, whenever a Forest enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A draw two explore seems really strong on turn 3

      Delete
    2. I'm not concerned with this' power level. However -
      do you think that it would be too likely to dissuade players from playing G/x decks in favor of monogreen (or monoforest) decks? Is that incentive too unfun?

      Delete
    3. On average, I think the power level is fine. The problem is that it's super swingy, so in the games where you go off it's pretty nuts.

      Delete
    4. This is quite swingy. When you have no lands in your hand, it does literally nothing (unlike Explore which might get you that land and at least gets you a card, and closer to land). When you have two forests, it's a cheaper Divination on top of accelerating your land plays.

      I do like the flavor of it, and would be happy to hold extra forests in the mid-late-game to play it as a green divination then.

      Delete
    5. Yeah, the late game double-cycle your lands is my favorite thing about it. Might be something to staple onto a midrange creature for greener card advantage, maybe.

      Delete
  5. Ominous Woods G
    Enchantment - Aura (C)
    Enchant Forest
    Enchanted forest is a 0/6 green Elemental creature. It's still a land.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The card title and art match, but I'm having a hell of a time justifying this effect with either. It is simple, apart from the land-creature duality.

      Delete
    2. Attacking creatures get lost in the woods!

      Delete
  6. Forest Blessing 2G
    Instant
    Target creature gets +3/+3 and can't be blocked by creatures with flying this turn.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In order to be a core set common, this needs to be a sorcery, because otherwise we'll bump into the n00b question about invalidating blocks after they're made. Other than that, this is perfect. Love how this effect expresses the art.

      Delete
  7. Fresh Air
    0
    Instant
    (Fresh Air is green.)
    Untap target Forest or green creature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Non-costs tend to confuse players. 0 is clear enough as seen on classic Ornithopter, but I feel like having to put reminder text to explain the card's color makes this just slightly too weird for a core set common (but it could def be common elsewhere).

      It's also hard to see coming and so a little advanced for new players. I do like it quite a bit still. My only hesitation being that one-time mana acceleration is much more red than green.

      Delete
  8. Wander through the Wood G
    Sorcery
    Reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land, put it onto the battlefield tapped. Otherwise put it into your hand and you gain 1 life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooh, I like this. Reads as lots of good things and a fun gamble.

      Delete
    2. This is a slightly more sideways Explore. I like it for an expert set, but I'd want to include Explore over this in core sets. The 1 life is distracting and unnecessary.

      Delete
  9. Hunting Knight 1W
    Creature- Human Knight (Common)
    2/2
    +2/+2 against Beasts (When this creature blocks or gets blocked by a Beast creature, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Beastshido" is interesting, first & foremost to me as it's a white creature squaring off what is presumably a G/r tribe.

      Delete
    2. I'm curious about "Hunting Knight gets +2/+2 as long as there is a Beast attacking or blocking". Alongside or against, it gets a bonus? But sadly that template doesn't quite work with post-combat toughness dropping.

      Delete
    3. ^^ "Whenever one or more Beasts attack or block, Hunting Knight gets +2/+2 until end of turn."

      Delete
    4. Ipaulsen's version is more thematic than Pasteur's or Wobbles' because you can't turn it on by attacking with a Hunting Knight and a beast. OTOH, their gameplay is better b/c it's proactive.

      I like this simple effect for a core set. I feel like the knight subtype would target zombies, goblins, or dragons before beasts.

      The way you templated this is interesting. "+2/+2 against [quality]" sounds great. It's not 100% crystal clear that it means you gain that bonus until EOT and only when blocking/blocked (as opposed to fighting or being tim'd), though, so I think we'd stick with the keyword format.

      Even so, it makes me wonder if there isn't a vein of design this language pushes toward (in Magic or another game.)

      Delete
  10. Good stuff, Artisans! Most of these designs are solidly common and flavorful. Getting to core set levels of simplicity and clarity is damned hard, but we've got a few successes.

    ReplyDelete