So here's the deal. You're preparing your submission for the Design Test, and you've locked in four cards.
If someone had submitted this for their test, I would have given them 0 points.
No, your face has a keyword.
Your goal this week is to design two more cards. Here are your restrictions:
- No Planeswalkers, as both those slots have been filled.
- Your two designs each have to be from one of the following color pairings:
- WU
- WB
- UB
- BR
- RG
- GW
- Your two designs can't have an overlapping color. Try to avoid overlapping types, but I won't penalize you if you do.
- No Blue or Green Sorceries
- No Blue or Red Creatures
- At least one of your designs has to be common.
- Your designs should demonstrate design skills not demonstrated in the already locked slots.
- Novelty, Creativity, and Elegance are tantamount.
Good luck, have fun, and I'll see you all on Monday.
Well, okay, I'll give a try, though I think I'm going to get eliminated for submitting four cards that already exist.
ReplyDeleteHashep Supply Caravan - WG
Creature – Camel (common)
Lifelink
At the end of your turn, if [CARDNAME] is tapped, you may untap target land you control.
2/2
It Begins - 3UB
Legendary Enchantment (mythic)
Whenever a non-artifact, non-token creature you control dies, exile it. If you do, create a colorless artifact creature token that is a copy of it, but is also a construct in addition to its other types.
I like the camel but I am not sure if it is common given that servant of the conduit is uncommon, you are jumping through some hoops to get the mana and it can only be used at instant speed, so maybe it passes. I am trying to get the flavor of it begins. Are we creating cyborgs or making robots in people's images?
DeleteFor the camel: Yes, I wanted to make the benefit conditional enough so it wasn't overpowered, but also clean for common. The tap requirement is because sometimes green and white have abilities that let you tap down other creatures to activate other skills, so the camel doesn't necessarily have to attack, but it does need to "do work." I kind of have ideas on a post-Bolas Amonkhet where everybody's working hard to recover from their apocalypse.
DeleteAs for It Begins -- yes. (I am just kind of joking around with the card name. The initial name of it was Tezzeret's Crusade, I believe) It could be either, really.
I think the untap ability is the cool part of the camel. Particularly for a common I would focus on just that piece.
DeleteMeanwhile, getting double duty out of all your creatures is a pretty bronkers ability and the templating to avoid tokens and artifacts is clunky. Maybe add a delay (EOT? Tapped?) before getting a token to increase the shields down moments?
It's interesting trying to make common multicolor creatures, because not only does there have to be a reason for it, but you also have to account for the fact that requiring two colors is an additional cost. Without the lifelink the camel could be mono-green. And that would be fine too (but a challenge fail). So to add white I decided to give a little nudge to attack with the camel in the event you didn't have other ways to tap it down. And it also felt kind of flavorful to have the caravan bringing you food and medicine (represented by lifelink).
DeleteFor It Begins, there's actually a lot of high stakes play going on. First you lose your creatures out of your graveyard, a big deal playing black. Then the tokens are more vulnerable to removal in general, and being artifacts opens them up to even more. The Scarab God is strong, but people have been able to deal with him, so I think this is okay.
It Begins compares very favorably to several past cards (e.g. Back from the Brink, Cauldron of Souls). I think it could/should cost 6 or even 7. That said, the flavor is top notch and the effect is exciting.
DeleteI don’t think many people will understand the camel or why the land untapping matters. Also, a two mana 2/2 lifelink with upside is probably Uncommon.
Distracting myself from my 3,500-word thing that I'm supposed to be doing while working over the weekend...
DeleteI'm terrible with calculating costs. This, amusingly, caused me to get that one question in the GDS3 multiple choice test correct that most people got wrong (ask somebody else!).
I'm going to simplify the camel a little bit. I think it's already pretty simple, but maybe too parasitic. I want it to work even in a non-Amonkhet setting. And updated casting costs on both.
Hashep Supply Caravan - 1WG
Creature – Camel (common)
Lifelink
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.
2/2
It Begins - 4UBB
Legendary Enchantment (mythic)
Whenever a non-artifact, non-token creature you control dies, exile it. If you do, create a colorless artifact creature token that is a copy of it, but is also a construct in addition to its other types.
I think your simplified camel is also quite flavorful now. The lifelink represents it bringing supplies, the land too. Seems nice. It's a little "Chinese menu", unfortunately.
DeleteIt Begins could still do with a better name, but it's a solid design.
Let's kick this off by thanking all Artisans who provided feedback over the weekend. I love how passionate this community is not only about working out their own individual designs, but offering solid critique of others' designs. Kudos.
DeleteI'm a big fan of It Begins. It can be flavored a variety of ways depending on context, but it's a fantastic approach to mythic. Legendary might be important for balancing purposes.
The Camel ended up in a nice place after applying some feedback. The green and white components of it don't really have a tremendous amount of synergy, which is not ideal, but it makes for a fine common.
Excellent job.
Design #1
ReplyDeleteConvert 1WU
Instant (R)
Gain control of target creature that was spared this turn.
Sparing creatures actually comes from the mechanic mercy that I designed as part of the set I'm working on. It reads:
Mercy (If this creature would destroy another creature, you may instead spare that creature)
Design #2
Constant Agitation BR
Enchantment - Aura (C)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets -1/-1 and must attack each turn if able.
I'm keeping it nice and simple with this one, but the pair of effects go very nicely together and I'm surprised it hasn't been done more (outside of Suicidal Charge).
What sort of inherent rewards are there for showing mercy on a creature? It's kind of tough to evaluate convert without knowing why you wouldn't kill it when you had the opportunity to do so.
DeleteConstant Agitation is simple, but nice and elegant. I like it.
One of my favorite mercy designs:
DeleteWizened Peacekeeper 3W
Creature - Human Soldier (U)
Mercy
Whenever CARDNAME spares a creature, that creature's controller skips their next combat phase.
2/4
One of the challenges of mercy was designing effects that made sense at the rarity of the creature but were also powerful enough to potentially want to spare a creature. Common ones were stuff like gaining life and blinking creatures, uncommon ones were like the Wizened Peacekeeper or making tokens, and there are some cooler, more complicated rare/mythic ones.
There are sadly many rules issues with Mercy, namely that combat damage from a creature doesn’t mean that creature “destroyed” the other creature. This is the same reason the wording on cards like Pillar of Flame is so wonky.
DeleteConstant Agitation is sweet.
DeleteFun fact: WU instant / BR enchantment will not work for the full 10 cards because there aren't any types left to use for UB.
DeleteI'm more optimistic about Mercy's rules than R Stech. It could be presented trample-style:
If CARDNAME would deal enough damage to a creature to destroy it, it spares that creature instead.
On the other hand, mercy has the problem that if the mercy effect is good enough, the opponent just won't attack or block it.
You're right, if I had to complete this challenge, I'd either have to replace one of them or make Constant Agitation an instant. Probably:
DeleteConstant Agitation BR
Instant
Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn and must attack this turn if able.
I think what I was referring to when I worded Mercy was the indestructible wording that a creature "can't be destroyed by damage or effects that say "destroy"). Based on your comments, I suppose the correct wording for what I'm going for with mercy could be:
Mercy (If this creature would deal lethal damage to or use an effect that would destroy another creature, you may instead spare that creature.)
I still have to playtest the set more, but I believe most of the cards I made with mercy don't have effects so good that an opponent would never attack into them. I suppose I may have to add more cards that help break board stalls into the set if this turns out to be the case.
@lpaulsen - lol. When I was typing up the challenge, I started mapping out the possible avenues people could take if they were actually doing the design challenge. After a few minutes of doing it, I said, eh, they only have to design two of the six cards, no one's going to actually bother to see if it works.
DeleteI guess I didn't specify that you can't use nonevergreens/deciduous keywords, so we'll let mercy slide in.
DeleteAs Ryan pointed out, it's a problematic keyword, as it's hard to qualify when a creature destroys something else. See Sengir Vampire and its descendants. It's a concept that's easy to grok, but not especially easy to template in a rules language as strict as magicese. I think the best way to do it is a combat trigger.
"When this creature blocks or becomes blocked, you may choose to have it not deal combat damage this turn. If you do, [effect]."
OK. Pretending though that mercy worked as intended, Convert has some issues. First of all, if we're showing off designs for a design test, it doesn't demonstrate a whole lot about your design skills, since the card doesn't actually use the keyword it references. It requires us to imagine that mercy is primarily a White ability to justify the color-id of the card. There's some interesting mechanical space to explore there, but the design test isn't the best place to do that.
Constant agitation is definitely more interesting as the aura, but I like the instant version as well. I'm not sure they would print Terminate at common in a present-day standard set, but that comes pretty close. Good common cards, and well within color.
Demonic Soldier (b/w) (common)
ReplyDeleteCreature-Demon Soldier
2/1
If you paid W to cast CARDNAME transform CARDNAME.
CARDNAME can't block.
////
Angelic Defender (White color indicator)
Creature-Angel
1/2
Defender
Hidden Dragon 2RW (Rare)
Enchantment
If you control 3 or more creatures, CARDNAME is a 5/5 red and white dragon creature with flying, haste, and lifelink.
Demonic Soldier is Weird. It's basically an unleash card, but only if you have both colors. But like Rakdos Cackler, if you're not unleashing the card you're doing it wrong, so this is 99% of the time a 2/1 can't block for B
DeleteI'm having a hard time imagining why you would ever cast Angelic Defender over Demonic Soldier ever. Maybe make it a 1/3 and give it flying. Still hard to visualize it though.
DeleteHidden Dragon is cute but RW isn't one of the approved color pairings. (I checked, because I had a RW legend I wanted to show off.) Haste and lifelink seems like a bit much together for that price. Maybe dump lifelink, since haste gives it the red flavor it needs.
The point is more tp show mirror versions you would play as a chump blocker when behind but not a fun position. I missed red white was not listed forgot Nahiri was one of the submitted. Without lifelink it isn't really white unless we are saying white is giving the three creatures and flying.
DeleteYeah without the keyword the visualization of good and evil might not be strong enough. Defender is the exact opposite of can't attack.
DeleteHidden Angel 3GW (rare)
DeleteEnchantment
If you control 10 or more permanents CARDNAME is a 3/4 green and white angel creature with flying, vigilance, and deathtouch.
I do like the creature a lot. Revamping the Hidden mechanic seems a little bit unoriginal, and I don’t believe it was very well received. Prettt sure Hidden Angel could be printed as the creature with the same mana cost, so it’s clearly underpowered.
DeleteYeah on my list of 10 I had the creature number 1 but it might be too clecer causing a nonimpactful effect. Well hidden angel would be green black but that is taken. I enjoy the Hidden Cycle but you are right it is overcosted as a three drop it might be fun and incentvize token swarm. In Ixalan it would say if you have the City's Blessing and have ascend but not allowed in this challenge.
DeleteA tricky Maneuver 1GW (Uncommon)
DeleteInstant
Create a 2/2 Green Ape under target player's control and exile up to one creature that player controls and return it to play at end of turn.
The True Horror(4UG)
DeleteEnchantment
Search your library for any number of creatures whose combined converted mana cost is 6. Create a blue and green Horror creature token named the perfect creation. The perfect creation is a copy of one of the exiled creatures except its power and toughnes is equal to the combined power of the exiled cards. When CARDNAME leaves the battlefield sacrifice the perfect creation.
Mythic rare for the true horror.
DeleteTrue horror also should be blue black since blue green is taken. Now to create a different mirror creature at common since black has been used.
DeleteThe Enlightened Soul (1G/W)
DeleteCreature-Human Monk
2/2
Lifelink
If you cast CARDNAME for green transform CARDNAME.
////
The Feral Beast
Creature-Human Beast
3/1
Trample
Maybe The Feral Beast could be 3/2. Let me know if between these two sides there is one you would play more than the other. Since most people said they would never cast the angelic defender.
DeleteI'm sure there are better True Horror Combos than Baneslayer Angel with +12/+12 from Phyrexian Dreadnaught, but that's where my mind went first. That's a very interesting Tammy/Jenny card to play with. Dimir works, as does Simic. I'm not 100% on any of those color pairings, and I'd have to give it a little more thought. Very cool design, and definitely an eye-catcher in a contest like this.
DeleteEnlightened Soul // Feral Beast reflects some discussion we had last month about using DFCs as effective Split Card creatures. I'm not the biggest fan of this execution, but it does work. Boros was closed off, but a better mirrored pair for the theme and mechanics would have the beast side be a 4/1 Ball Lightning variant.
Yeah I really liked the idea of boros for chaos vs. peace, but I also have a really good izzet card. True Name Nemesis with whatever the biggest cheapest creatures you can find is where my mind went, which I think is fine in Legacy. I think the card would be okay in Modern, interesting in Standard depending on what we have, can get a big efficient flier or something, and give another combo option in Legacy. Yeah I am not a fan of using hybrid mana and it works so much better keyworded as reflection, so you get the idea that this is a character with two alternate paths they may have traveled on. What if Tezzert didn't go evil? Maybe we could have a blue white tezzeret all about order.
DeleteBunt RB
ReplyDeleteInstant (C)
Target player sacrifices a tapped nonland permanent.
Dangerous Recon 2WU
Instant (U)
Look at one to four cards from the top of your library and put one of them into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library. For each card you choose not to look at, create a 1/1 white soldier token.
You can also comment on the rest of my design test in yesterday's comments!
I like Bunt, but it doesn't feel like a B/R card to me. Red can make people sacrifice permanents, but it's never done nonland permanents. I think Bunt would work better as a W/B card.
DeleteFor Dangerous Recon, the effect is cool but the wording is pretty clunky and "each card you choose not to look at" isn't very specific/concrete. Maybe something like:
Choose a number between one and four. Look at cards from the top of your library equal to the chosen number, then put one in your hand and the rest on the bottom in any order. Create 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens equal to four minus the chosen number.
Then again, that feels clunky too. I'm not sure if there's a good way to word this.
I agree that Bunt feels more W/B. Also, because it's selecting tapped permanents it's punishing opponents for getting aggressive toward you, which is something white does. I do like the card, but I think it's just the wrong colors.
DeleteI've been fiddling with rewarding players for scrying cards to the bottom with some RU card designs, so I like the concept here. But the templating is odd. Would you ever choose a number lower than four? Card sifting is likely to provide more advantages in UW than some 1/1 tokens. Also, UW has a theme of preparation and control. Bottoming cards without looking at them for immediate rewards is a kind of risky thing we'd see in red.
“Target player sacrifices a tapped artifact or creature” is much easier to understand and affects maybe one fewer card (the enchantment that taps). I also think that wording shows it is pretty clearly black-red (see e.g. Hit of Hit//Run).
DeleteDangerous Recon has the seeds of a really cool cycle. I’d like to see more iterations of this idea - I’m not convinced this is the best version of it.
Exile the top four cards of your library. Turn up to four of them face-up and put one card revealed this way into your hand. Then, for each card remaining face-down, create a 1/1 white soldier token.
DeleteThat's not a lot better.
Reveal the top four cards of your library. Target opponent may exile up to three of them and put the rest into your hand. Create a 1/1 white soldier token for each card exiled this way.
What if Steam Augury was a lot worse?
I like Bunt a lot, but this templating nut seems hard to crack.
I like putting the token creation first. Create four 1/1 soldier tokens. Sacrifice any number of soldiers. Look at the top X cards wher X is the number of creatures sacrificed put one into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library. This is a little stronger since you can sacrifice other soldiers.
DeleteYeah, that design is functionally different, Doug, but it's also interesting.
DeleteUnfortunately Magic doesn't parse 'distributing numbers' well across concepts. It's something that'd be nice to innovate some wording for.
Bunt RB
DeleteInstant (C)
Target player sacrifices a tapped artifact or creature.
I was trying to avoid getting too close to hit. I like the tapped clause because of how it actually can strengthen the card unlike Assassinate.
Dangerous Recon 2WU
Instant (U)
Reveal up to four cards from the top of your library and put one of them into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library. For each card less than four revealed this way, create a 1/1 white soldier token.
The sacrifice ability would make this more WUB than WB or UW, while looking at cards makes it more U
I actually commented on your designs in Thursday's thread, but I really like Bunt as modified at the end here, and the templating on Recon is definitely an improvement. Solid submissions both.
DeleteGreat! I've ranked my submission as requested.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBid for Blood (Mythic)
ReplyDelete4WBB
Sorcery
Each player untaps each land they control. Add together each player’s life total into one pool. Then, starting with you, each player may pay mana to remove that much life from the pool. Once the pool reaches 0 or every player has paid mana, each player’s life total becomes the amount they paid, with a minimum of 1.
Illusive Strength (Common)
2{U/B}
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2.
Whenever enchanted creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice Illusive Strength unless you pay 2{U/B}.
I would get rid of the “unless” clause on Illusive Strength. It’s a cool enough mechanic as is, and the added complexity is making it not common. You could probably bump the mana cost down as well. What makes this black?
DeleteBid for Blood doesn’t work as written - you can’t tap lands for mana during the resolution of the spell. You’d have to untap all lands when you cast Bid for Blood. I’m also not sure this card is significantly different from “each player’s life total becomes equal to the number of lands they control”?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteGrammar police cited me.
DeleteBid for Blood should technically work as written, because mana abilities can be activated to produce mana during the resolution of an activated/triggered ability that involves a mana payment:
Comp Rules 116.1d A player may activate a mana ability whenever he or she has priority, whenever he or she is
casting a spell or activating an ability that requires a mana payment, or whenever a rule or effect asks for a mana payment (even in the middle of casting or resolving a spell or activating or resolving an ability).
As far as Illusive Strength goes, it was based around the idea of spending mana to "keep the illusion intact/real." It's black because it's a variant of the skulking ability, except on an aura, and also because it has a pseudo-drawback for the bonus. I considered making it be just {U/B} for the cost to cast it, but it seemed oppressive from a Limited standpoint once you hit turn 4, so to make it a little bit more tense I upped it to three and kept the trigger cost the same. Should I play it now and cross my fingers, or wait until I have six mana?
That said, you're probably right about it being uncommon since it could be like Moldervine Cloak with the unless clause. That card didn't pop into my head at all when I posted this, but now that it has... hmm.
One thing I forgot to mention, was that originally I considered "each permanent with a mana ability they control" for the untap clause, but I chose to keep it to lands for simplicity's sake. While you're right that it's probably not very different from "becomes equal to the # of lands", I left it that way on purpose for the sake of multiplayer, because in most cases people would drop down a bit in life but deck variety (especially ramp decks) also increased the gameplay variety of this card, since one player could theoretically take a good chunk of the pot.
DeleteIn other words, I wanted it to make multiplayer have a decent chance of ending quickly but not necessarily always, depending on what people brought to the table. :)
I think Bid for Blood is a neat idea but I'm not sure about where you have it placed on the color pie. Like you explain, decks with ramping or non-land sources of mana are positioned to take advantage of this game. What kind of WB deck do you see being a position to do that? Do you see this in a set where lots of different colors have sources of non-land mana (like Ixalan or Zendikar)?
DeleteFor Illusive Strength, I tend to associate these illusion effects as a downside for spells that are deliberately undercosted. This doesn't feel like that kind of spell. It feels like that weakness has been added to justify it being common. I think that the side effect is that it becomes really hard to justify putting in your deck.
The idea behind it was to basically have a semi weird, sweeping card that does nice things with False Cure, Painful Quandry, Kavu Predator and so on. It was to be a kind of build around card to go with other cards that took advantage of life gain and/or loss.
DeleteClarity: I meant Exquisite Blood, not Painful Quandary. I had the art right, but not the name. :p
DeleteBid for blood is such a fun idea, but it does have a wall of text problem. Some concepts just aren't meant to be translated into Magicese. There might be a way to do it as an X spell. There's at least a seed of something cool in there, but it does need to be developed.
DeleteIllusive Strength: Illusion drawback on an aura is fascinating. I agree that it doesn't need the regenerating clause, although it would be interesting to see it play in the same space at Totem Armor (Spider Umbra and friends). It's kind of wasted on auras, since most of the time if the host creature is getting targeted, the aura is not long for this world regardless. But it should definitely be cheaper. Interesting design.
The other creature has to be WB or GW. The other sorcery has to be WB or BR. The full list of options:
ReplyDeleteWB creature, BR sorcery, UB / GW enchantment, WU / RG instant
WB creature, BR sorcery, WU / RG enchantment, UB / GW instant
GW creature, WB sorcery, UB / RG enchantment, WU / BR instant
GW creature, WB sorcery, WU / BR enchantment, UB / RG instant
GW creature / BR sorcery doesn't work because then we have to place WU / UB / WB across just two card types, which is impossible.
To maximize what I leave open, I'm going to go for the two unused types (enchantment and instant) and design WU and RG cards. The existing cards already show plenty of skill in "skirting the challenge's requirements" so I'm going to design conventional, single-text-box gold cards.
For my common I'd like to show off a simple, fresh, concise effect that could potentially become a set theme or keyword. I'll do that on a WU instant. The submission so far is also a little short on fun, out-there ideas, so I'm going to design an RG enchantment (non-Aura, probably) that does something interesting. Jay's approach of starting from the color pie is very different from mine, and seems to have worked out for him, so I'll start there.
Actual designs to follow.
Brainstorming for the WU design:
DeleteIf I reverse the Azorius guild philosophy, I get "peace (law, community, etc.) in the service of perfection (knowledge, advancement, etc.)". This seems promising.
The first thing I think of is Azor's Elocutors. "Don't bother me, I'm trying to achieve perfection!" Checks out mechanically - WU is defensive. On an instant we probably want an ability-word-style effect to represent this. After some brainstorming I come up with:
Stonewalling
WU
Instant (Common)
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 1. If you haven't lost life this turn, instead counter that spell unless its controller pays 4.
I like how this rewards blocking (and teaches players to cast spells post-combat), but it has two major problems. First, it isn't WU unless you think Mana Tithe is canon. Second, the "If you haven't lost life" condition doesn't have enough design space to be an ability word-- it only works on a small subset of instants. If you say "since your last turn" it might be workable, but then Stonewalling doesn't work with it!
Moving on. I toy with ideas about people working together to gather knowledge and after a moment I realize I've rediscovered conspire. I also consider "reverse-torment" as a spell rider, e.g. "draw a card, gain 3 life, or make a 1/1", but that's wordy and too close to fabricate. At some point I run across this design:
De-Escalate
WU
Instant (Common)
Choose up to one target creature you control and one target creature an opponent controls. Return those creatures to their owners' hands.
The gameplay is fun (and pretty powerful) but the templating is a bear, which takes away from the Melvin appeal. I consider the alternative, multiplayer-friendly template "Choose up to one target creature each player controls" but that's a bit confusing for common.
Lastly I consider adding a resource rider (like Eldrazi Spawn, Treasures, and Clues). To fit my WU philosophy it should be a creature that accomplishes a blue goal. After some brainstorming, I get:
Silence the Class
2WU
Instant (Common)
Tap up to three target creatures.
Create a colorless 1/1 Advisor creature token with "When this creature attacks and isn't blocked, sacrifice it and draw a card."
All right, now for the RG enchantment. I want something splashy, preferably aimed at a Timmy/Tammy audience (RG is good for that). The RG philosophy I'm going for is "freedom (self-expression, emotion, etc.) through acceptance (growth, harmony, etc.)"
DeleteFor some reason my first thought is "reliving the glory days" which gets me to this design:
Blast from the Past (Not the Unhinged One)
2RG
Enchantment (Rare)
At the beginning of your upkeep, exile a random card from your graveyard. You may play that card this turn.
Regrowth + impulsive draw is appealing to me, but this doesn't quite feel green enough and it's maybe a little too easy to recur things endlessly with. I remember that I have a design in my back pocket that's a decent fit for RG:
Guerrilla Resistance
3RG
Enchantment (Rare)
Tap an untapped creature you control: Target opponent may tap an untapped creature they control. If they do, those creatures fight each other. Otherwise, that creature deals damage to them equal to its power.
Black-bordered Party Crasher effect. Definitely some weirdness here because the creature could already be blocking, but I think it fits the flavor. Maybe too good-- who knows?
But I've gotten sidetracked from my color pie approach. Freedom through acceptance, huh? How about this?
Embrace Your Destiny
3RG
Enchantment (Rare)
Skip your draw step.
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a permanent card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, cast it without paying its mana cost.
And one more interpretation:
Light Out For The Territory
RG
Enchantment (Uncommon)
Creatures you control have hexproof and attack every turn if able.
Still not 100% satisfied since I haven't come up with anything super innovative, but it's a start.
I'm going to mark Silence the Class and Light Out for the Territory as my current "draft" submission for this challenge. But if others have feedback/preferences I'd love to hear it.
DeleteI love the exploration of your thought process, Ipaulsen.
DeleteSilence the Class creates a token I'd rather not see at common, to be frank. That's a lot of text for a common token, and one that isn't as intuitive as the Devil tokens.
Light Out is interesting, but definitely an odd one. I like the balancing of hexproof with combat vulnerability, pushing that 'weakness' of hexproof.
Hmm. I see what you mean about the Advisor token, but if I change the ability to, say, "When this dies, draw a card" then it'll play very differently (much more defensive). Maybe saboteur: scry 1? I'm going to try and still justify the original design being common, based on (1) doesn't add much to board complexity, and (2) intended as a set theme / keyword mechanic.
DeleteAnother option for the resource (that I didn't think of the first time) is to create an Aura token with "whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to an opponent, draw a card". But that's probably too fiddly for common as well.
"Discretion is the better part of valor." I'm changing my WU submission to De-Escalate.
DeleteI love watching people go through the thought process of these challenges.
DeleteDeescelate is a narrower, golder version of Aether Tradewinds, which is a great design, but wouldn't have gotten you a lot of traction in a design test submission.
Reverting to Silence the class, that is extra weird at common for a few different reasons. Creating a complex token when this could be a flash creature with an ETB rider for the tapping, which isn't especially synergistic. It's a lot going on.
For Light Out, I'm not the biggest fan of chinese menu gold designs where one color's sole contribution is strict downside. I think that if it was hexproof and trample (or maybe haste?) plus the downside of always attacking it would be a lot more compelling. Giving all your stuff hexproof is tricky to balance, which may want it pushed to rare, but playtesting could demonstrate the appropriate cost and rarity.
I'd argue that De-Escalate plays differently from Aether Tradewinds because it can bounce an opponent's creature without setting back your board or mana. Ditto for Peel From Reality which is the 2-mana, creatures-only version of Tradewinds.
DeleteMissed the "up to" part of the rules text. Fair points.
DeleteBier Bearer WB
ReplyDeleteCreature - Human Priest (common)
2/2
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
This seems too obvious but the obvious WB b ability. I wanted to make it slightly more notable than ETB, say leave the battlefield so it combos with blink or bounce, but ETB already does that.
Inspired Roar 2RG
Instant (Uncommon)
Target creature gets +2/+2 UEOT. It deals 2 damage to target player.
This seemed like a good RG ability. Both parts are fairly R or G, but I don't think it would quite fit as either alone. I wasn't sure what cost or rarity. It can do a lot of damage to a player on a big creature, or an efficient combat trick on a small creature, so I wasn't sure if it was too swingy for Uncommon. But it's not splashy enough for rare, and already quite expensive for an instant.
Inspired Roar feels like also a common. I don’t think it’s too swingy at all if it only can target a player. Bier Bearer is solid if unexciting. These are pretty good!
DeleteThe cost on Inspired Roar can come way down. RG is still very reasonable and you could even change the damage to "creature or player" if you wanted. Bier Bearer is well costed.
DeleteThe problem that I have with these as challenge designs is that the challenge was asking for cool, inventive stuff, and I think these (Bier Bearer especially) are too cautious to make that bar.
Feck. That reads "deals damage equal to its power to target player". I was toying with alternatives but apparently I wrote a hybrid version.
DeleteAnd yeah. I have difficulty hitting the sweet spot between "a trainwreck" and "boring".
That makes it:
DeleteInspired Roar 2RG
Instant (Uncommon)
Target creature gets +2/+2 UEOT. It deals damage equal to its power to target player.
I'm still thinking on the wb. Maybe a "when this dies, target player loses 3 life unless they pay 3"?
Yeah, we definitely want to see more innovation from your designs here, Jack. These feel too similar to Izzet Guildmage and Reason to Believe. You are demonstrating the ability to pair basic effects together in symmetrically pleasing ways (your latest 'tithe' idea for Bier Bearer) and to chain simple effects in new, interesting ways (Inspired Roar).
DeleteWe want to see not just more innovation, but a demonstration of other design skills. We want cards that were designed from a very different mindset than the ones above.
Lol at the Bear puns in Bier Bearer. It's a great design, but as others pointed out, very safe. WB is tricky at common, as there's just not that much interesting stuff to do with it, and this is a good place to start. The mana or life tax on the death trigger is definitely more interesting. It would be better with bigger numbers too, and still arguably common. 4 for a 2/2 with 4 mana or 4 life death trigger? Still a common, and interesting.
DeleteInspired Roar remains a common in its final iteration, and a good submission, but with a lot of overlap with your Orzhov submission. I'd say either are a good choice for common, but both for the same test is overkill.
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DeleteThank you. I'm glad someone appreciated the pun :) Agreed on death trigger (although I think there's a lot of value in an efficient creature even with a good ability).
DeleteWhat's a good comparison for inspired roar? It definitely seemed simple, I did indeed originally envisage it as a common, but it seemed like at common wizards avoided most cards likely to do a significant amount of damage to players (some do 5 damage, but usually sacrifice the creature or don't do other effects as well) and also combat tricks that do multiple things (there's some burn to two creatures, but usually only for 1) and both at once seemed two swingy. What's the proper way of rating it?
Damage to the face is a strictly common effect, unless it gets high enough, in which case it becomes rare. It doesn't impact the battlefield, so there's very little complexity inherent to it. If it becomes too swingy on its own (I think 7 or 8 is the threshold there) then we don't want it showing up at common and uncommon doesn't really want it. The scale of damage is regulated more by cost than rarity in this case.
Delete+2/+2 ueot is a common effect, not especially potent. Definite;y common.
Even mashing the two together, it can make for some cool combo interactions, but how often do you have a creature with 5+ power on the board in Rakdos colors when you don't already have a good hold on the game? More often than not this will do in the ballpark of 4-5 damage, combat trick into killing an opponents creature, and that's it. Perfectly reasonable for a common, although it's possible it needs to cost just a bit more.
Circus Ringmaster 3WG
ReplyDeleteCreature - Human (C)
When Circus Ringmaster enters the battlefield, create either two 1/1 white Bird creature tokens, or a 3/3 green Elephant creature token.
1/1
Intrusive Thoughts 3RB
Sorcery(R)
Target opponent reveals their hand. You may choose a creature card from their hand and put it onto the battlefield under your control. That creature gains haste until end of turn. Sacrifice that creature at end of turn.
Forgot about Treacherous Urge. How about
DeleteIntrusive Thoughts 3RB
Sorcery(R)
Look at target opponent's hand. You may exile a non-land card from their hand. You may cast that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
That's Psychic Intrusion. :)
DeleteSo much intruding going on!
DeleteI like the original Intrusive Thoughts better. It certainly belongs in BR in a non-Planar-Chaos world.
I wonder how one would cost a version of Treacherous Urge that lets them keep their creature afterward?
Circus Ringmaster is a solid design. I think it's definitely a little close to the same 'design skills' that are demonstrated through Izzet Guildmage, but it's moving more towards conceptual rather than mechanical symmetries, which is nice.
DeleteIntrusive Thoughts just isn't innovative enough.
Final BR attempt
DeleteMadness Vessel 1BR
Enchantment (R)
Whenever a player would draw a card, exile that card instead. Players may play cards exiled by Madness Vessel.
3: Sacrifice Madness Vessel. Any play may activate this ability.
I love Circus Ringmaster. I might tweak it to be a 2/2 (and possibly - not definitely - up the cost to 6) just to let him be in the middle of the elephant and the birds. Phenomenal.
DeleteMadness Vessel plays in some of the same space as Knowledge Pool which is a very good thing. Would making the kill-switch on the vessel a life payment be better design? Either way, very cool submissions.
The Ringmaster is fun! It's not a big question or a design question but I wonder if we prefer it as a two-bulleted list or written out with grammar? I'd be curious just to hear aesthetic opinions.
DeleteI vote bullets. I love that templating tech.
DeleteAcorn Ascendent 2WG
ReplyDeleteCreature - Treefolk Cleric (u)
When CARDNAME would deal damage to a player, instead create that many 1/1 green Squirrel Soldier tokens.
2/4
Bloodthirsty Quaff BR
Instant (c)
Target creature gets +2/+0 and trample until end of turn. If an opponent was dealt damage this turn, put two +1/+1 counters on it instead.
Acorn Ascendant is a weird uncommon, definitely showing off some different skills. It's an unusual wonky buildaround that'll get Johnny sensibilities going, but is still functional. Being a 2/4 seems a bit odd, though. I guess it's to safely attack?
DeleteBloodthirsty Quaff is onto something, but I don't like this 'secret modal' design it has. I think at common it's too confusing.
AA: 2 power seemed the sweet spot for rewarding getting in while also feeling like there's real payoff to any sort of buffs.
DeleteBQ: This was the most concise wording I could find but concise isn't always clarity. I don't like to do bulleted choices unless it's an actual choice though, so I'm not sure how to make the modality clearer? Making both bonuses +2/+2 might be a small step, but B&R both tend to give power-focused growths. Hmm hm hmm.
Acorn Ascendant is fun. Keeping it from going full on Earl of Squirrel leaves it at uncommon. I'm not sure that it needs to be White at all though. Neither flavor nor mechanics require the white component. My biggest question is how fun is it? Like, I'm a mega Jenny, but I don't think I'd especially want to draft that or throw it in a deck. Something to consider.
DeleteI'm not sure you'll ever find a great solution to what you're trying to do in Bloodthirsty Quaff, but it's an interesting attempt. Would counters until end of turn be too weird?
Put 2 +1/+1 counters on target creature and it gains trample until end of turn. At the beginning of the next end step, if that creature did not deal combat damage to a player, remove all counters from that creature.
I had forgotten about Earl of Squirrel! My original design of this was a W giant that produced Goats, but it seemed like this could be a space G & W shared. I wonder whether reducing the cost/body ratio or making it hybrid could make it more appealing for drafting.
DeleteIf Bloodthirst was an ability word instead of a keyword, it'd be easy. I like your approach, and its effect feels common, but wordiness + delayed trigger is likely to get it redflagged. Maybe that's good enough, though!
Painful Transgressions 2RB
ReplyDeleteEnchantment - Aura (R)
Enchant Creature
When Painful Transgressions enters the battlefield gain control of enchanted creature until end of turn and untap it and it gains haste until end of turn.
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage it deals that much damage to each other creature.
so WU(non-enchantment, non-Creature)
or GW (non-enchantment, non-sorcery)common
I want to do an instant focusing on GW
at the risk of making a uncommon instead lets try:
flying pig 2GW
Creature- Beast Bird (G)
Fyling
Trample
3/3
I wanted to make
little cloud WU
Creature-Elemental
Flying, Vigilence
2/2
but that would be a black green creature and garruk is in that slot.
I think the real issue with Little Cloud is Izzet Guildmage blocks blue from being a creature color.
DeleteI imagine Painful Transgressions ought to target creatures you don't control? but that doesn't work well with aura templating.
Flying Pig is neat enough, but is there any subtle thing we can do to make it more memorable while still at common?
I'd go with "Enchant creature you don't own". Close enough for most circumstances, hm?
DeletePainful Transgressions is interesting, I do like that it leaves a 'mark' on the 'traitor'. However, is this really the most interesting / flavorful / simple effect we can leave behind? It does feel solidly BR without being Chinese menu, which is nice.
Take 2
DeletePainful Transgressions 2RB
Enchantment - Aura (R)
Enchant Creature
When Painful Transgressions enters the battlefield gain control of enchanted creature until end of turn and untap it and it gains haste until end of turn.
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage it deals that much damage to each other creature.
Leaping Pig 2GW
Creature- Beast Bird (C)
Trample
W: Leaping Pig gains flying until end of turn
4/3
Painful Transgressions 2RB
DeleteEnchantment - Aura (R)
Enchant Creature YOU DONT CONTROL
When Painful Transgressions enters the battlefield gain control of enchanted creature until end of turn and untap it and it gains haste until end of turn.
Whenever enchanted creature deals damage it deals that much damage to each other creature.
Gaining control would make the enchantment fall off :/
DeleteEnchant creature you do not own.
DeleteEnchant creature you do not own work enough to use it here.
DeleteI'm a fan of Painful Transgressions, even if it requires a few templating gymnastics to work as intended. It's a nice rakdos card, and forces you to build around it quite a bit. A very nice fit for the rare slot.
DeleteLeaping pig erred too far on the side of common. The goal of the design test is to show us what you can do that hasn't been done before. Imagine it like a Price is Right One Bid, where you got to get as close to that line between common and uncommon without going over. It's tricky, but you're never going to make it to the top 8 by bidding $1. It's a fine design to fill a common slot in a set, but definitely not making any waves.
Grave Explosion (mythic rare)
ReplyDeleteSorcery
As an additional cost to cast, exile any number of creature cards from your graveyard.
CARDNAME deals X damage to each opponent, where X is the total power of creatures exiled this way.
Sturdy Dryad (common)
1GW
Creature - Dryad
2/1
T: Add G or W.
W: CARDNAME gets +0/+1 until end of turn.
Grave Explosion costs how much?
DeleteIt definitely looks quite dangerous. It's very similar to Corpse Lunge. It's a powerful finisher, but at the right cost, it's an interesting one.
Sturdy Dryad seems too similar to the design space we've explored in Reason to Believe - synergistic "1-2" combo effects from two different colors. I also am not the biggest fan of the fact that it really encourages going on the defense. It's a cool combo, though!
Ah sorry! Mana cost for Grave Explosion is 5BR. And that's a fair comment for Sturdy Dryad.
DeleteSturdy Dryad could also potentially be a mono green card with a W ability. Going to make a different UW or GW card. But not having great ideas so default to something obvious for common:
DeleteWatchful Centaur (common)
1G/W G/W
Creature - Centaur Knight
3/3
Vigilance
And to continue switching:
DeleteSurprise And (common)
1GW
Instant
Choose one -
- Create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens with vigilance.
- Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature you control.
Is there a punchline to the cardname?
DeleteHaha! No, just autocorrect/me not noticing things. "Gimme Two" would be a good name.
DeleteIs Grave Explosion ever not an automatic win in a deck built around it? Seven mana sorceries can do that, but it seems very swingy, and combo bait. I like it. Test it to death before unleashing it on the world.
DeleteSurprise And as a modal combat trick is definitely undercosted, but not exactly doing anything all that novel. It could easily be a mono-W card. What could you do with a modal spell that would wow a judge while staying in Common's orbit?
Holy Heretic 1WB (C)
ReplyDeleteCreature - Human Cleric
Stealth (this creature can't be blocked as long as the defending player controls a tapped creature)
Whenever you gain life, each opponent loses 1 life.
1/4
Faux Pas 2UB (R)
Instant
Counter target spell. That spell's controller reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Stealth is interesting. I'm not sure how much depth there is to the mechanic such that it needs to be keyworded (and the challenge did omit to explicitly forbid new keywords, which was oversight on my part). Unlike skulk, it's not only meaningful on smaller creatures, but if we start sticking it on larger creatures, it probably leads to unfun game states as a matter of course.
DeleteTo keep this common, the trigger probably has to occur at end of turn rather than whenever you gain life. Limit it to once per turn and checking whether you gained any life, regardless of amount, at the beginning of the end step.
Faux Pas is brutal. I know that there are counterspells that Lobotomyize the countered spell, but nothing quite like that take. Dismal Failure is close, but not as splashy. I dig it. It might need to be a smidge more expensive, but let PD figure that out.
I actually designed dismal failure at first (since Dismiss is a great card) and realized that if we are two colors on a rare counterspell we can do more.
DeleteI'm experimenting with Stealth right now, and forgot the 'no new keywords' clause. I think the Justin's more aggressive crook would probably play better as a common, instead of 'bleed my opponent with a good blocker'
Book-Cooking Crook (common)
ReplyDeleteWB
Creature - Human Rogue Advisor
1/3
Whenever an opponent loses life, you may gain 1 life.
"The noose is the only loophole he'll never see."
Mortuary Raid (uncommon)
2RB
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Mortuary Raid, discard a card and sacrifice a creature.
Draw two cards and return two creature cards from your graveyard to your hand.
Whoops. Didn't see Skye's post there; designed a similar WB common by accident.
DeleteAnticipated question from players: Can Mortuary Raid return cards to your hand that you discarded / sacrificed for its cost?
DeleteWell it doesn't target.
DeleteHa ha, it's K Justin, I thought it was really funny, actually.
DeleteWonder which plays better.
DeleteI think an in-between would work best. The "whenever an opponent loses life, you gain 1 life" and a 1-2 power evasive creature would probably play the best. Quite good, but still a common. Could give flying or menace - I forgot that the design challenge doesn't let you use new keywords - I've been experimenting with Stealth as the theoretical U/B/g Evasion that R&D has been looking for.
DeleteBook Cooking Crook is fun. I wouldn't feel the need to limit this to once per turn the way I did Skye's similar design, although I imagine that there is at least some confusion among some players whether all life change is done in single digit increments or not. Great common.
DeleteMortuary Raid does have some timing concerns that could be addressed by either exiling the cards initially or removing it as part of the cost and having the sacrifice and discard occur after the return. If the ability to return the discarded/sacrificed creatures is by design, I'm not sure that it's particularly a Rakdos card. With some tweaks though, that's a card I could get behind for this submission.
Skye, I think stats-wise there are a lot of ways to build a creature with B-CC's ability. I went with 1/3 because I wanted it to only cost two, since it's sort of a soul warden variant.
DeleteThanks, zeff. As designed, Mortuary Raid does let you get back returned/sacked creatures, but I was pretty tired when I put these together and I'm no longer sure that's a good idea. You do raise a good point; although it's not blue and should theoretically be discarding first, discarding and saccing second would be more elegant. This came to me as a way to help a black-red strategy scale into the late game better.
Astonish {3}{U}{G}
ReplyDeleteInstant (R)
The next card you cast this turn can be cast as though it had flash and without paying its mana cost.
Barghest {1}{W}{B}
Creature - Hound Spirit (C)
First strike
Whenever a player’s life total is reduced to below 10, put a +1/+1 counter on Barghest.
2/2
I'm not quite sure Barghest's trigger is common, but it seems simple enough to me. There's some fun shenanigans to be had with it too in the right decks. (Those shenanigans are what might make it uncommon.)
DeleteSo astonish is just a better through the breach and dramatic entrance. That is pretty busted. Should be six or seve n mana but it would be fun.
DeleteYeah Astonish plus Emrakul (you even get the cast trigger!) is nuts. I’m not sure there’s a cost for that effect that’s both safe and fun.
DeleteI think seven is fine especially if we make it more cost restrictive 3UUGG, so you won't get to use red rituals.
DeleteI like the Barghest's trigger. I think it's uncomplicated enough for common. I think the kind of shenanigans it could cause in non-limited environments (assuming it doesn't end up in a set with lots of life sacrifice triggers) doesn't push it out of common, but that's just me.
DeleteYeah, I was considering a higher cost for Astonish myself. I wasn't sure if the gold could bring it down a notch or not. I was thinking Doug's cost, of {3}{U}{U}{G}{G}. At that point it only cheats out real big stuff, and otherwise is mostly for surprise-flash.
DeleteThe worry I had was that seven mana is indeed less fun. Another way to fix it is to specify "blue or green card", that removes a few of the most egregious cases.
5 is probably a skosh to low. 6 mana for anything at instant speed seems reasonable. See dramatic entrance,bring to light, and through the breach for what 5 mana gets you.
DeleteMaybe something like 2UG/Instant
Delete"The next card you cast this turn can be cast as though it had flash and costs {5} less to cast."?
We already have a Simic card locked in!
DeleteAstonish is indeed busted, as others pointed out. There's space to explore and expand Quicken and Scout's Warning technology, and I like Past's suggestion of using Flash technology. Cool card, but definitely needs some iteration.
Can the rules handle checking the transition past a life threshold? Vampire Lacerator and friends turn on when a threshold is reached, but as a one (or more!) time trigger, it could cause problems. Digital would definitely need to be consulted. All that said, I love how it mines unexplored space for a common, and it's an elegant and interesting design. Nice work!
Bah! That's what I get for working at midnight to squeeze my entry in under the deadline. :P
DeleteYeah, the trigger on Barghest is really unusual. Currently I don't think it works but the intent is there. It's more important to get ideas down for a design test like this than it is to use exact, final wording.
You know, when I said it seemed fine, I didn't even fully grasp the repeatability of the Barghest's trigger. I still think it might be okay in common as part of a particular set, but lots of limited testing would be required.
DeleteI think it would rarely trigger, so shouldn't be much of an issue. Normally will be a 2/2 first strike for 3.
Delete