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 noncreature card for this illustration. Bonus points if it deals with snow or {S} without sucking.
Harsh Environment
ReplyDelete2U
Snow Enchantment - Rare
Whenever a nonland permanent with converted mana cost less than the number of snow permanents you control becomes tapped, freeze it. (The next time it would untap, instead it becomes unfrozen.)
Rough beats! At least they don't stack. Still, it seems like any dedicated snow deck is going to lock down everything every other turn
DeleteFWIW, I envision this being printed in a format with no snow-covered lands, while in older formats I suspect this will be too slow.
DeleteHaving this without snow covered lands in standard is interesting! And it probably is too slow/underpowered for modern. I'm just worried that if the card is good enough to get played anywhere (standard, limited, Commander) it's not going to result in a fun game.
Delete"Creatures with power less than the number of snow permanents you control must exert to attack"? In this vein, I'd be interested in snow-Propaganda with convoke-payable costs.
DeleteI love this text for freezing.
DeleteHarsh Environment feels like it'll slow the game down more than just by freezing everything, because you're constantly doing math. Something this strong probably needs to be symmetrical as this is, but it still feels off to me that my snow permanents are being frozen my my snow enchantment.
Endure
ReplyDeleteW
Instant
Put an ice counter on a basic land you control. (It becomes a snow land)
Prevent the next X damage to target creature where X is the number of snow lands you control.
How do ice counters make snow permanents? Oh well.
I'm not sure this works, but trying to envisage a limited environment where you don't get snow-covered lands. Even though that moves away from the original snow concept.
I like it! The existence of snow covered basics probably means that a mechanic that wants to make lands special would need to be something else because otherwise it's hard to push them.
DeleteIce counters making lands (or other things) snow permanents seems real. Nice. I do still want to count all snow permanents even if we're only icing lands.
DeleteI will say that counters on lands are annoying b/c of how often they're un/tapped. But this could be made worth it.
DeleteSeasonal migration 3G
ReplyDeleteSorcery - U
Put a 1/1 green migrant token with haste onto the battlefield for each snow permanent you control. Exile them at the end of turn.
This very much feels like a red card - see Thatcher's Revolt
Deleteasonal migration 2G
DeleteSorcery - U
Put a 1/1 green migrant token with haste onto the battlefield for each snow permanent you control. At end of turn, sacrifice each migrant who didn’t deal combat damage this turn.
Seasonal migration 2G
DeleteSorcery - U
Put a 1/1 green migrant token with haste onto the battlefield for each snow permanent you control. At end of turn, sacrifice each migrant who didn’t deal combat damage to a player this turn.
This still feels fairly red - and migratory travelers (Nomad, perhaps, as a creature type?) seem fine to have a red flavor. Is there something about this that you like as especially green?
DeleteHaste is almost exclusively red. Green could get something like this if it needed it for Standard.
DeleteThis phrase "who didn’t deal combat damage to a player this turn" will rarely matter since the migrants who didn't deal damage were blocked and almost certainly killed.
Hard Trek 1WR
ReplyDeleteSnow Enchantment (r)
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, target opponent chooses a nonsnow permanent you control. Sacrifice the chosen permanent.
Creatures you control get +1/+1.
1{RW}{RW}: Until end of turn, creatures you control get +1/+1.
It feels odd to let my opponent choose something for me to sacrifice. I suppose that's a white thing? And clearly in Constructed all my permanents will be snow. Not sure what the red's for.
DeleteI do like the story of hardship and survival. I feel like either we should ditch the static +1/+1 so all the bonuses have to be paid for, or that the activated ability should involve further sacrifice.
1G Winter Scouting
ReplyDeleteSorcery
Search your library for a basic land and put it into your hand. If that card is a snow permanent put it onto the battlefield tapped instead. Shuffle your library
Nice snow variant on rampant growth and sylvan scrying
Deleteruin in thier wake is the inspiration for a simple desing
DeleteI've been watching un- preview cards. It's interesting to see augment/host, which recapitulates a lot of the idea of pilot/mecha or head/body from Tesla. They don't try to do, "the combined version is gigantic" even though they're normally reasonably worthwhile. The trigger/effect makes sense as a way of making them match up in interestingly different combinations, I know Tesla tried to do that with abilities/size. AFAIK they accept that both can be killed too. And they make one half playable alone but not the other.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, I think, "that's a really good idea, it's funny Tesla didn't think of it". In others, I think "wow, will that really work ok"?
It is fascinating to see compromises they were willing to make that never occurred to us, and how that produced a relatively powerful result.
DeleteBand of Survivors R
ReplyDeleteSorcery (U)
Create a X/X red warrior token for each non-Snow land you control, where X is equal to the number of Snow lands you control.
Band of Survivors 4R
DeleteSorcery (R)
Create a X/X red warrior token for each non-Snow land you control, where X is equal to the number of Snow lands you control.
I wish there was a way to game these by casting them with fetches/evolving wildses in play and then fetching snow basics to pump the warriors. As-is it seems mechanically okay but unreliable. Is it supposed to be "strong but inconsistent" or is there a way to play it and feel more clever?
DeleteThe trick to gaming this is that balancing the number of snow to non-snow lands results in the maximum power. So evolving wild type cards are great for their ability to be either/or.
DeleteThis is very Mel. We usually want to reward something all the way, rather than half way. Though maybe this is a good angle for unlimited snow lands. Should be fair for Limited too.
DeleteI think you game it by just having a lot of land.