Friday, November 3, 2017

Weekend Art Challenge 110317—Risachantag

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 Rivals of Ixalan card for this illustration.

22 comments:

  1. Deeproot Clearing
    Land
    CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped unless you pay 2UG. If you do, sacrifice it and put a +1/+1 counter on each untapped creature you control.
    T: Add U or G to your mana pool.

    I like the idea of hitting the future sight asymmetrical dual land cycle from the enemy color side. This isn't perfect, but having some spell lands makes sense in a set with Explore. (land, T: add w/r, deal 1 damage to each creature you control?)

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    Replies
    1. I like it! Spell lands would be neat with explore. You might want to keep the land in play rather than sacrificing it just to distance it mechanically from deserts

      Delete
    2. Spell lands are cool in theory. In practice, they're twice as bad for most players as Kavu Titan because you want to save them until you can cast them, but that leaves you mana-starved.

      How about this?

      Deeproot Clearing
      Land
      CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
      T: Add U or G to your mana pool.
      2UG, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Put a +1/+1 counter on each untapped creature you control. Sorcery speed.

      Is the untapped condition in there to promote use before combat?

      Delete
    3. Mostly just there to make things a little less funky around combat, even though sorcery/land speed usually keeps that in check. Possible it cuts into the fun of ramping a thing like that out with mana dorks.

      Here's one that probably isn't a perfect fit for Ixalan, but is another try for this space, triggering off both sides of Explore:

      Deeproot Bay
      Land (r)
      Any time a +1/+1 counter would be put on another creature you control, place a +1/+1 counter on Deeproot Bay and it becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature until end of turn.
      T: Add U or G to your mana pool. You lose 2 life unless Deeproot Bay has a +1/+1 counter on it.

      Delete
    4. Alternatively, this could just transform into a big story card/loch ness monster once it hits a threshold of counters, but I don't know what the most fun obverse would be.

      Delete
  2. Sunken Scrawl G
    Sorcery - U
    Put a card from your graveyard ontop of your library.
    If you control a merfolk, draw a card.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Reclaim that upgrades to better-than-Regrowth in a tribal deck. I'm not sure how well that fits the merfolk shtick in Ixalan, but I can see that as a nice tribal reward at some point.

      Delete
  3. Perhaps “if you control a merfolk, put it into your hand instead.” May be better.

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    Replies
    1. Merfolk Regrowth! I especially like the synergies with Explore being able to bin cards only to return them later. I might want to see a little more umph out of an uncommon, as you are jumping through a lot of hoops for the effect. Weird how the "draw a card" line reads more blue to me.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, since you'll never be drawing anything different, this wording is better.

      Delete
    3. "If you control a merfolk, put it into your hand instead" should work, but you can't trigger dredge that way, if that ever matters for a G merfolk deck.

      Delete
  4. Great art for Flooded Grove.

    Submerged Passage 1UU
    Enchantment - Aura (C)
    Enchant Land
    Enchanted land is an Island.
    When submerged passage enters the battlefield, target creature you control explores.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A Spreading Seas update that might not replace itself with a card. It could get you a +1/+1 counter, which New Horizons has shown us can really matter.

      I like the flavor that flooding this area gives your merfolk a new place to explore.

      Notably, it also costs an extra mana, and a colored one at that; Probably a smart move because we learned the hard way that Spreading Seas was more than effective enough at mana disruption to play.

      Delete
    2. I would also like to see answers to Search for Azconta or legions landing that are fairly playable, just not good enough to always be main decked

      Delete
    3. That's a smart thing to include in the format. And more inspirational to deckbuilding than just another Ghost Quarter.

      Delete
    4. Why do lands hate lands so much?

      Delete
  5. Replies
    1. oops-

      flood the jungle 2UU
      Sorcery
      Until the end of turn merfolk you control gain unblockable and "G: put a +1/+1 counter on this creature"

      Delete
    2. Funky! It's quite a finisher when it works, although this asks a lot of a mana base to actually get the green pump ability to really add much. Maybe 2U to cast? I like the green firebreath ability

      Delete
    3. I like the idea here, but it feels a bit too peculiar.

      Limiting unblockable to your merfolk seems necessary both balance-wise and thematically.

      Why grant an activated ability? (So that we can sneak in green kicker?)

      Why worry about +1/+1 counters when this should end the game? I feel like Herald of Secret Streams is already finding the intersection of +1/+1 counters and unblockable.

      Compare with:
      Flood the Jungle 2GU
      Sorcery
      Put a +1/+1 counter on each Merfolk you control. They can't be blocked this turn.

      or:

      Flood the Jungle 2GU
      Sorcery
      Put a +1/+1 counter on each green creature you control.
      Blue creatures you control can't be blocked this turn.

      Delete
    4. I like that last one, though I think we're moving towards tribal and away from color identifiers generally. My best wind-up-and-the-pitch:

      Flood the Jungle 3G
      Enchantment
      When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
      U: Target creature can't block creatures with +1/+1 counters on them.

      Delete