We'll start this one off with something that looks a bit easier than it is. Design a mono-Black card that evokes the season of Spring.
Good luck, have fun, and I'll see you all next week.
Friday, April 26, 2019
Weekend Design Challenge 042619 - Black Spring
We'll start this one off with something that looks a bit easier than it is. Design a mono-Black card that evokes the season of Spring.
Good luck, have fun, and I'll see you all next week.
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Crypt Cleaning {3}{B}
ReplyDeleteSorcery (Common)
Return up to two target creature cards from your graveyard to your hand, then exile your graveyard. You gain 1 life for each card exiled this way.
I have this image in my head of a necromancer with the voice of Dr. Farnsworth from "Futurama" puttering around and debating which creatures to keep while the rest of the crew sweeps everything up.
DeleteI like this a lot. Mechanically black but still feels spring-y in a positive way, which is really tricky. Interesting that this could also be a mono-G card, probably?
Delete@larcent I cant unsee that. Thank you.
DeleteVery nice execution. I concur with lpaulsen that this could possibly be mono-G (though G typically returns any card or lands, not creatures specifically). It might even be a contender for a hybrid card, but it's absolutely fine in mono-B. The flavor carries the disconnect between the Disentomb abilitiy and the Crypt Incursion one. I would say that it might want to be an uncommon. No one part is especially complex, but the package overall is.
DeleteFloe Melt 2B
ReplyDeleteSorcery (unc)
Put the top 3 cards of your library into your graveyard, then return the top two creature cards in your graveyard to your hand.
"We'll know if your missing brother was dumped into the river when it thaws next year."
Ordered graveyards? 1998 called...
DeleteThere are very good reasons we don't care about graveyard order anymore. I really like the flavor of this card, but I'm not sure what's gained other than a fraction of a Vorthos point by specifying top two over "choose up to two." The cost might need to be adjusted, but then again, it might not (Corpse Churn tells me CMC 3.5 is about right for this at sorcery).
DeleteYou could use the "cards that were put in the graveyard this turn" rules text.
DeleteThere's a reason cards don't care about graveyard order anymore, but I wouldn't call it 'very good' when you factor what the cost. It is a net positive, though.
DeleteI don't care if you do re-order your graveyard, as long as you don't do it in the middle of resolving this card. By milling and then looking at the top, you have a chance of getting two cards you want from your gy, of milling two and getting those, or a combination; which you want is highly contextual, but that variability means this is almost always exciting.
Not worth changing the rule, but I'm not convinced it needs to.
The question is, does this feel like a black Spring card?
DeleteI'll stand by very good. Being able to examine, organize, and manipulate your graveyard has opened the door to so many mechanics, named and unnamed, that would be more difficult to execute (for fear of cheating) if graveyards had to remain static. Can you imagine the practicality of choosing the order creatures die to when Wrathed in a world where we normally care about GY order?
DeleteAs far as black spring, your title and flavor text are absolutely carrying the weight of the challenge over here. Two creature corpse churn isn't exactly a card that screams Spring in mechanical concept, but as flavored I buy it.
Great to have this blog back-- thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteMono-B Spring? Let's go for a hurt-yourself enchantment:
Gorge on Sweets 2BB
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, draw three cards.
Whenever a card leaves your hand, you lose 2 life.
I'm not 100% certain about this, but I'm pretty sure that no card before has cared about things leaving your hand. Most of the time that the concept of leaving a zone comes up is on the context of Oblivion Ring effects, which cares about the banishing permanent leaving the battlefield. Erebos's Titan cares about things leaving a graveyard, but the transfer from hand to another zone is uncharted territory. I'd be excited to see what else can be done in that space. This will probably need some helpful reminder text though.
DeleteThis is a very fun concept, though I'm not sure how much it makes me think of Spring. That might just be my cultural touchstones though.
Why is 'a card leaves your hand' more interesting here than 'you play a card' or 'you discard a card' except that it's novel text?
DeleteI would say because it covers both of the major likely things to happen with all those cards in your hand. It punishes both action and inaction, forcing you to have many options, but determine the actual optimal play.
DeleteCovering both action and inaction is my concern. This card doesn't tell me what to do. It has no story.
DeleteThat's a good point. The only way to engineer it to your benefit is to play/discard a bunch of cards early, then cast the enchantment and getting rid of it after 3-4 turns.
DeleteI didn't really think about that when making it, though. It was more of a top-down design around the feeling of wanting to eat too much even though you know it'll be painful later. I admit that isn't necessarily a "spring" thing... it was just the first thing that came to mind from spring + mono-B.
Profane Planting XBB
ReplyDeleteSorcery - Rare
As an additional casting cost, sacrifice a creature with power 4 or greater.
Create X 1/1 black Scorpion tokens with deathtouch.
"With the right fertilizer, you can grow them year-round. They'll even help you refill your stocks!"
Eh, I don't know. Feels more like an evil ceremony as opposed to a sinister twist on farming.
It's odd that I care about the creature's power, but that's not what sets X.
DeleteI had an idea here of a new type of gatekeeper mechanism for black that requires a "big creature" sacrifice to go with spells with big impact. Something beyond "non-token," given that the spell makes tokens already.
DeleteI really like this card, but I agree it's not exactly a good fit with the Black Spring challenge. It's also not exactly mono-B. If you were to change nothing about the card except change the token type to Plant, which would make it more in line with the challenge, that's basically a green card.
DeleteOn that note, I really want an uncommon draft signal card of
Poison Ivy Ritual BG
Enchantment (Unc.)
Plant creatures you control get +1/+1 and have deathtouch
I agree with Jay that having X and caring about a threshhold power be unrelated on the same card is odd, but I'm fine with it at rare.
Premature Bloom B
ReplyDeleteSorcery
Add BBB. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells. If this mana is spent on a creature spell, sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
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I almost want this to add GGG?
This is red now, but I love the solution.
DeleteBoth rituals and Sneak Attack effects are red, so this is definitely out-of-color for the challenge.
DeleteInterestingly, I think something like Heartless Summoning could easily be flavored in this way and still be very Black.
I'd say it's acceptable to revisit this slice of the color pie for an Eternal-only product, but you're right in that black doesn't get rituals anymore. I don't think you'd ever be able to print this in a Standard legal set anyway.
Delete