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. |
| feliciacano |
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| rainerpetterart |
I know you were probably inspired by the discussion about haunt itself in the question 4 from few days ago. Coming from that, could you specify what's the "definition" of Haunt you intend for the challenge? Is it the narrow one (aka restricted to the complete mechanic from original Ravnica) or the broader one (aka only the death-and-attach trigger)?
ReplyDeleteJust the keyword itself.
DeleteVengeful Rusalka 1B
DeleteArt 1
Creature - Spirit (common)
Haunt (When this creature dies, exile it haunting target creature.)
Vengeful Spirit can't block.
Creatures haunted by Vengeful Spirit can't block.
3/2
Haunt designs are definitely going to get bonus points when they grant the exact same effect to their hauntee that they have themselves.
DeleteThis critter is abnormally efficient thanks to its downside (though I suspect this is still too good to be common), and then you get to turn that downside into an upside by haunting an opponent's creature when it dies.
Even better, this design turns the awkwardness that you must target a creature even if your opponent has none into a fit because you risk downgrading another of your own creatures.
Nice.
Warding Ancestor - 2W (Feliciacano)
ReplyDeleteCreature - Spirit
Haunt, Flying
Spells and activated abilities your Opponents control must target Warding Ancestor if able.
Creatures haunted by Warding Ancestor have hexproof.
2/1
*She died for her children, and she lives for theirs*
Whether or not white should get hexproof, this is a pretty evocative flagbearer!
DeleteI was hesitant to use it, but virtually uninteractable indestructible seems even worse - more on color, but at least more manageable. Trying to decide, really.
DeleteIs there some way to make it more conditional? E.g. gains indestructible when opponent targets it, would fit the warding flavour and have a similar effect, while leaving it open to mass destruction, -X/-X, or exile. Or indestructible while attacking, or similar, is a common toned-down-indestructible.
DeleteOr, try to follow the "can't target" flavour, say, "must target a creature you control other than haunted creature if able"? That way, it sounds like a white-ish restriction even though the effect is "hexproof as long as you control another creature".
Also be aware, one of the edge cases Jay pointed out this week with haunt is that at the time it wasn't optional. I don't know if they can tweak the rules to fix that, but ideally a wholely-positive (or at least, not optional) haunt effect isn't ideal because if your huant creature dies and you don't have any other creatures, it apparently needs to haunt an opponent's creature.
*Edited
DeleteHaunt, Flying
Spells and abilities your opponents control must target ~ if able.
Creatures haunted by ~ cannot be the target of spells it abilities your opponents control if able.
I like the idea of a ghostly flagbearer protecting your team. The must- and cannot-be-targeted abilities are a nice mirror of each other.
DeleteConsider this alternative:
"Spells and abilities your opponents control must target ~ or creatures haunted by it, if able."
Instead of an ability and its mirror, we just use the one ability. If we can target an opposing creature when our Warding Ancestor dies, that's awesome. If not, we can still choose our own least important creature.
Final note: 2/1 fliers for 3 win games of Limited sometimes. I'd very much remove flying from this because players want this to survive over 80% of the other creatures they're running.
I'm just going to declare that the Golgari figured out how to take advantage of Haunt, because how can you look at that rainerpetterart image and not imagine exactly that?
ReplyDeleteZanikev Rot Watcher – 1GB (Uncommon)
Creature—Elf Spirit
Haunt.
When Zanikev Rot Watcher enters the battlefield, or the creature it haunts dies, put a +1/+1 counter on all other creatures you control.
2/2
see ridge scale tusker from kaladesh for power level concerns, if it distributed one or two counters each time it would be fair
DeleteI think the set Ridge Scale Tusker was in also played a role in its power level issues (I had actually forgotten about it because it only seemed to be a problem in limited play). The Bellowing Aegisaur doesn't seem to be causing the same problems in Ixalan despite being triggerable multiple times. Sure it's different and the trigger functions differently, but it's also less of an issue because of the way Ixalan is designed.
DeleteMaking Zanikev Rot Watcher multicolor restrains it somewhat in limited from being too abusable. I could also limit it to non-token creatures if it were going into a token-heavy set (like Kaladesh).
Or I could just do a couple of counters and bump it down to common. I didn't really want to do that though. I'm finding that trying to make good, balanced uncommons is harder that making commons and am trying to stretch myself.
Actually, after I wrote that I was thinking "What if I made it so that it only put counters on token creatures?" because that kind of fits the feel of the card and the kind of game design space Golgari can fit in quite well.
DeleteOkay, I decided to change to make it more narrowly focused.
DeleteZanikev Rot Watcher – 1GB (Uncommon)
Creature—Elf Spirit
Haunt.
When Zanikev Rot Watcher enters the battlefield, or the creature it haunts dies, put a +1/+1 counter on each token creature you control.
2/3
So clearly now this spirit is pushing you not into color choices but a deck archetype, not unusual for uncommon multicolors. It would have to be in a set that has plenty of token enablers in black and green, which isn't hard to imagine at all.
And it definitely won't be as effective in a rampy/stompy deck, so we don't have to worry about it being too explosive.
Zanikev Rot Watcher is just a 2/3 for three unless you have token creatures. If so, it makes them all permanently bigger immediately and then when it dies and later the creature it haunts dies, it makes them all bigger again. In terms of power, that's probably fine.
DeleteI'm not sure what makes this card black, except that haunt feels more black than green, but if Golgari does get haunt, haunt would be mono-green too. And if Golgari's mechanic in this set is haunt, where is it getting all the tokens it needs to make this card good?
My biggest concern, though, is that this falls into the exact same trap as the original slate of haunt cards, which is that it's not intuitive to get your haunt effect on ETB and then again two deaths later.
Thornplucker 1B
ReplyDeleteCreature - Human Scout
1/2
Haunt (When this creature dies, exile it haunting target creature.)
Whenever ~ or haunted creature attacks, each opponent loses 1 life.
I looked for a variant of haunt that would "feel like" haunt, but also be simpler to grok. The best idea I had was to have an ability which applies to the creature, which is then grafted onto another creature. The aim is to look for simple abilities where you're sad the creature dies too soon to get much use out of them, and haunt lets them last a bit longer, but not usually forever.
I was assuming it would *only* be on creatures. And all the abilities would be "ongoing" abilities, not ETB abilities like original haunt.
I'm not sure if I should allow boosts to the creature like keywords or not. There's a lot of design space there used in other mechanics like bestow and bloodrush. But the advantage of triggers and abilities is you can get a similar but different use of them by haunting your creature *or* the opponent's, which was a feature of the original haunt. Also, they can be templated symmetrically as "whenever CARDNAME or haunted creature...". Whereas a keyword would need two different clauses. Maybe have abilities like "When attack, you may have a creature you control gain..." so it can be a keyword, but not tied to the creature.
I notice the reminder text is a lot easier to grok with "dies" and "exile" instead of spelling each out.
+1 on the reminder text, and this is a really nifty implementation that is still flavorful. Makes for ersatz removal on the opponent's creatures, too.
DeleteWhich art are you using? I'm guessing #1?
Thank you! Yeah, I liked that you could sensibly use on just your creatures, or an just any creature, if you didn't want to think about it too hard, but there were more options if you wanted to carefully choose which opponent's creature to disadvantage most.
DeleteYeah, art 1.
(FWIW, I don't get credit for the reminder text, that's just what it was when I looked it up, but I think it does make the cards look a lot less overwhelming.)
It's very nicely "Orzhov" in flavor when you use it to haunt an opponent's creature, punishing them for daring to attack you. I could definitely see it in a Ravnica set if they ever attempted to bring haunt back.
DeleteOh yes, I know what I forgot. I felt obliged to give it a creature type from *before* it died, even though it's really spooky, on the grounds that it's clearly haunting after it dies. Although that's not ideal because it's confusing the art shows a ghost and it doesn't have spirit creature type. Maybe I should have stuck to non-creatures?
DeleteYeah, this is real solid. No notes.
DeleteI'm eating the responsibility for choosing illustrations of ghosts, when haunt creatures explicitly start not dead.
Vengeful Eidolon 2WB
ReplyDeleteCreature - Spirit (U)
Haunt
When CARDNAME or the creature it haunts dies, target player sacrifices a creature.
1/2
Renewing Eidolon 2BG
Creature - Spirit (U)
Haunt
When CARDNAME or the creature it haunts dies, return another target permanent card from your graveyard to your hand.
2/1
Meant to be a pair in the same set. Streamlined the ability a bit to play on more of a sacrifice theme, with both players incentivized to try to control the timing of when the creature/hauntee dies.
WB was designed and flavored first.
Not super in love with the name for BG.
Focusing on deaths instead of one birth and one death is clearly an improvement over the original. It makes more sense to internalize, and it clarifies that you want your haunter to die.
DeleteI'm still not sure Being Haunted is best expressed as a penalty or reward for your death, but from a Mel perspective this is a clear improvement.
Renewing Eidolon is a double Gravedigger that triggers on death…s. It only does full work when you lose four creatures—itself and its haunt target, the one it raises the first time, and the one it raises the second time. It never returns itself (thank heavens) and it never returns its haunt target either (because of the timing of its abilities). You could potentially raise the same other creature both times though. Also, it gets back any permanent. I guess because it's green? But that makes the parallel with Vengeful Eidolon weaker.
Art #1
ReplyDeleteBattlefield Beauty (Rare)
RW
2/2
Haunt (When this creature dies, exile it haunting target creature.)
The creature haunted by Battlefield Beauty has "At the beginning of your upkeep, this creature deals damage to itself equal to its power."
Flavor: "It was love at first sight; unfortunately, that love was through the sights of a crossbow. No one can live with the guilt that comes with killing something so beautiful."
I like where your heads at, creating a haunt creature that will murder most whatever it haunts, but it bothers me that Battlefield Beauty is only a creature for one turn. It's not really a creature at all.
DeleteHere's where I went with the same goal:
Sadness Elemental 3B
(cmn)
Haunt
At the beginning of your upkeep step, put a -1/-1 counter on Sadness Elemental or a creature haunted by it.
3/3
Ghost of the Woods GB
ReplyDeleteArt 2
Creature Elf Spirit (R)
Land Haunt (When this creature dies, exile it haunting target land)
Pay 2 life, T: Add <> <> to your mana pool.
The land haunted by Ghost of the Woods has "Pay 2 life, t: Add <> <> to your mana pool" and loses all other types and abilities.
1/1
One of the difficulties of Haunt is that the cards so clearly want to be flavored as ghosts, yet the haunt ability only happens after they die. If haunt ever returns, I would live to see Amonkhet style haunt tokens with "ghost art" similar to the Mummy at used for embalm. That would also make it possible to have less confusing static effects for the cards.
DeleteMaking something an ancient tomb? Sweet! and super well flavored. I think the twist with 'Land Haunt' is good too, as planned are often haunted as well.
DeleteNice work!
I agree tokens would be ideal: No way to confuse your aura-like exiled haunt card for a creature on the battlefield that way.
DeleteI also support being able to haunt other permanent types. My instinct says to use 'haunt' as a verb and switch the order: Haunt Land / Haunt Creature / etc.
Ghost of the Woods makes a scary amount of mana for a two-drop, even if it's gold and costs life. I do like how that same ability becomes merely +1 mana on the land it haunts, but a card that doubles my mana production on turn two that even if you kill it, still increases my permanent mana output seems unlikely to see print. It's neat that you can turn an opponent's land colorless and cost them life, but the ability to accelerate yourself will be so dominant early and that the land destruction side will almost never matter.
Art 2 (rainerpetterart)
ReplyDeleteBayou's Eidolon - 1BG
Creature - Elf Spirit
Haunt (When this creature dies, exile it haunting target creature.)
Bayou’s Eidolon’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of Forest you control.
Haunted creature gets -X/-X, where X is the number of Swamp you control.
*/*
This ended up not as elegant as I first imagined, and I'm in the end not a fan of "counting your type of basic lands" effect (the more colors I play, the happier I am), but oh crap. I think there's a potential in this kind of symmetric positive/negative effect with haunt.
Ooh, that is an interesting reversal. Could it just be black and count swamps both times? That would make land counting less difficult. I agree, something other than counting lands might be better, but it's hard to think of something that works well.
DeleteI like what you were going for, and confirm your instinct that this isn't quite there. The issue is that only Bayou makes you happy to play this. If we give up on forcing multicolor (and the art that wants this to be green when the -/- effect wants to be black), then we can count just Swamps and make an extra violent Nightmare. That's pretty sweet.
DeleteSure, the "only swamp" option is probably a good way to clean this. I was trapped with green because of the elf picture and wouldn't realize I could get rid of it to stay in black.
DeleteArt #2
ReplyDeleteElf person that protects the woods
GG
Creature- Elf spirit
Landfall- Whenever a land enters the battlefield, ~ or the creature haunted by it gets +1/+1 UEOT and gains shroud.
2/2
I like the playtest name.
DeleteAssuming this card also has haunt and that shroud is hexproof, this seems like a decent uncommon for a set that wants both haunt and landfall. Granting shroud/hexproof only at the times you can play land is rarely useful, so we might ditch that, unless the set has multiple harrow effects.
Maybe change it to "Lands you control gain shroud"?
DeleteRainerpetterart
ReplyDeleteThere in Spirit
2G
Sorcery
Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Shuffle your library.
Haunt
When the haunted creature dies, target land you control becomes a 4/4 Elemental creature. It is still a land.
"Old druids don't die. They just become one with the earth."
I wasn't expecting the haunt ability to be different from the original effect. I wouldn't do that at common (see Aftermath) but that could be fun at unc+ when it tells a good story. This story's decent, though I'm forced to wonder why it isn't just:
DeleteSearch your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. It becomes a 4/4 colorless Elemental creature. It is still a land. Shuffle your library.
Echo of Ashaya (rainerpetterart)(Uncommon)
ReplyDelete2G
Creature - Elemental Spirit
Hexproof, Haunt
If the creature ~ haunts would be destroyed, you may instead remove all damage from it and put ~ in its owner's graveyard.
3/1
Ooh. Umbra haunt is a neat call.
DeleteThanks! I wished it didn't have to be a may ability, but Haunt is a must and being forced to totem armor your opponent's stuff is a major feel bad.
DeleteIt's a guardian angel!
DeleteI'm slightly sad this doesn't do in life anything similar to what it does in death, but the totem armor haunt thing is pretty great. We'd have to clarify that Echo stops haunting when it leaves exile.
Maybe we want to remove hexproof, just because making haunt less relevant is a nonbo.
(didn't fit either art but had a cool space for a card)
ReplyDeleteName Cost
Type
When ~ or the creature it haunts dies do X
haunt
X/0
anyway my card for art 2
Grove's Guardian 2G
Creature Elf Warrior
Vigelance, Trample, Reach
Haunt
Creatures haunted by Grove's Guardian have Vigelance, Trample and Reach
2/4
I guess that's a rare. You don't often see trample and reach together, but vigilance can make them relevant together.
DeleteYeah, I think having a keyword and granting it to your hauntees makes sense for new-haunt. One card doing several keywords seems legit for a rare.
I will say that trample looks real weird on this 2-power body. I'd rather make it a 4/4 at a higher cost, so all the keywords matter out of the gate.
Nice work, Artisans.
ReplyDeleteWhile the haunt mechanic as seen in Ravnica will never return, the haunt keyword could: on cards like these. The main thing is getting rid of that extremely awkward, "when this dies and then the creature you choose then dies."
I love these designs! Our podcast (Beacon of Creation) is hashing out haunt currently as one of the main mechanics in our community designed set. We talk a lot about what Haunt really means.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link: Beacon of Creation
DeleteNostalgic Beloved
ReplyDelete2W
uncommon
Haunt
Lifelink
Creatures you control haunted by ~ gain +0/+3 and have lifelink.
Creatures you don't control haunted by ~ lose and can't have lifelink.
I hope you see this card! I'm going through/reading these challenges way after the deadlines but it's still important to me to try them.
Oops forgot to write that it's a 2/3 spirit creature.
Delete