GDS3 Reflections: Ari Nieh, Challenge #2

My initial reaction to this challenge was, “Are you kidding me? Why would they ask us to do this?”

Circuses are a rich source of tropes, but they’re not a remotely appropriate setting for a Magic: the Gathering set. Magic is fundamentally a game about violent combat between supernatural creatures, and the entire concept of a circus is a poor fit. I assume that this choice was deliberately inappropriate, so as to avoid overlaps with any future sets.


To be honest, I did not initially enjoy this challenge very much. Coming up with a submission was a wildly overconstrained problem. Between the top-down names, the color requirements, rarity, card type, innovation, aesthetics, and worldbuilding, there was no question of nailing all the criteria 100%. That left us having to choose where to cut corners, and that meant gambling on which failures the judges would care about most. As we would discover, the judges had a variety of perspectives on what constituted a good top-down design.

By the end of the challenge, I was having a much better time. Top-down designs can be really satisfying to create, and my playtesters reported a few laugh-out-loud moments with my cards.

Acrobatics (common)
1U
Instant
If target creature is blocked, it becomes unblocked. (It's still attacking.)
Draw a card.

I knew that this card was a risky submission. There had to be some reason that a similar effect had never been printed in the modern era. But my playtesters liked it, and clean commons are hard to find. In retrospect, a more conventional effect would have been received better.

Feats of Strength (uncommon)
3GG
Sorcery
Converge - Target creature gets +2/+2 for each color of mana spent to cast CARDNAME and gains trample until end of turn. It must be blocked this turn if able.

While I think Converge is a good mechanical fit for the set, it’s certainly true that the name is a poor match. My playtesters thought the lure effect was appropriate for showcasing a must-watch attraction, but it’s not clear whether the judges got that connection.

Unicycle (uncommon)
2
Artifact — Equipment
Equip 2
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has haste.
Whenever a creature with equal power and toughness enters the battlefield under your control, you may attach CARDNAME to it.

This was one of my favorite cards, and I was surprised by some judges’ reactions. I maintain that equipment is absolutely the correct card type to represent this concept- if you’re run over by a unicycle, it matters a great deal whether it’s being ridden by a clown or an elephant!

Traveling Circus (rare)
Land
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, add one mana of any color.
T: Add 1.
2: Return CARDNAME to your hand. Activate this ability only if you control a multicolored permanent.

After being criticized for my rares being above rate in Challenge #1, I decided to lowball the power level on this land for safety. This would have been better with either a reduced cost or using a trigger as Melissa suggested.

Clown Car (rare)
4
Artifact — Vehicle
1/4
Haste
Crew 1
Whenever CARDNAME attacks, draw a card for each creature that crewed it this turn.

Funny story: I legit forgot that vehicles are deciduous! I’d been on hiatus from Magic during Amonkhet, so the two blocks most fixed in my recent memory were Kaladesh and Ixalan. Whoops. Previous challenges had not distinguished between evergreen and deciduous mechanics, and I didn't notice that the rules were different for this one.

Anyway, I liked this design because it incentivized shoving all your creatures into a tiny vehicle so that you could draw a bunch of cards. I don’t think the defining feature of a clown car is the clowns themselves- it’s the fact that there are a shocking number of people in a small car. In fact, the humor value of attacking with a car populated by a vedalken artificer, two Eldrazi spawn, and an elephant is one of this card’s main draws.

Earlier versions only drew cards equal to the number of rogues (i.e., clowns) that crewed it, but playtesting revealed that this version was more rewarding. One of my basic principles of top-down design is that perfect technical accuracy is much less important than evoking the correct emotion or narrative.

The Astonishing Alfonso! [Magician] (mythic rare)
1WUB
Legendary Planeswalker — Alfonso
4
+2: You may exile a non-Rabbit permanent you control. If you do, create an 0/1 white Rabbit creature token.
-3: Exile target non-Bird permanent. Create a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying.
-7: You may play any number of cards exiled by CARDNAME without paying their mana costs.

This card had originally been a creature:

The Astonishing Alfonso! [Magician] (mythic rare)
3WUB
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
2/4
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, exile target noncreature permanent and create two 1/1 white Bird creature tokens with flying.
1B, exile a non-Cat creature you control: Create a 4/2 black Cat creature token.
4U: You may play any number of cards exiled by CARDNAME without paying their mana costs.

Playtesters suggested that he felt very much like a planeswalker. They also didn’t get the “assistant turns into a tiger” flavor, so I switched to rabbits. It’s still not clear to me whether the creature or planeswalker would have been better. As the judges pointed out, this does a good job of reading like a stage magician, but the play pattern doesn’t live up to that promise. Changing to a planeswalker late on Sunday was a risk, and more iteration was needed to fix this design.

All in all, this was a disappointing challenge for me. I made some clear and avoidable errors of judgment. Many of my designs that seemed clever or flavorful to me received mixed reviews from the judges. I resolved to stop clowning around and do better on the next challenge.