Friday, September 25, 2020

Weekend Design Challenge 092520 - Randomizer

Hey Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Monday.

Let's try something different this time around. Roll five 6-sided dice (here's an easy link) and look up the results in the following list:

First die: 1=white, 2=blue, 3=black, 4=red, 5=green, 6=multicolor

Second die: 1=artifact (ignore color), 2=creature, 3=enchantment, 4=instant, 5=sorcery, 6=planeswalker

Third die: 1=common, 2-3=uncommon, 4-5=rare, 6=mythic

Fourth die: converted mana cost is what you rolled

Fifth die: 1=aggression, 2=control, 3=midrange, 4=ramp, 5=combo, 6=tempo

(The fifth die is the bonus challenge. Feel free to interpret it loosely.)

Write down what you rolled, then design a card that fits those parameters.

Good luck and have fun!

9 comments:

  1. Rare black instant costing 6, tempo-ish. Hmmmmm.

    Insistent Offer 5B
    Instant
    Target player sacrifices two creatures and loses two life. They draw a card for each creature they sacrificed this way.

    Black isn't built for giving temporary set-backs, more painting the walls with their guts. But turning an infernal deal on the opponent felt apt.

    I debated destroy instead of sacrifice but losing two creatures is already a big swing even with the compensation. I'm not at all sure of the cost though. Sac isn't usually instant, but otoh, 6 mana is a lot to keep kicking the can down the road without winning :)

    I like this challenge! The design is restricted just enough to usually be interesting.

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    1. Tempo with cmc=6 is challenging! I like the concept you came up with a lot. At 6 mana (and rare) I suspect it could be even stronger, e.g. "destroy up to N target creatures. For each creature destroyed this way, its controller draws a card and loses 1 life"

      Delete
  2. Green - Enchantment - Uncommon - CMC 3 - Tempo

    Symbiotic Carrier 2G
    Enchantment - Aura (U)
    Enchant creature you control
    Whenever enchanted creature attacks, create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token.
    Sacrifice a Saproling: Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and gains trample until end of turn.

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    Replies
    1. This is great flavor and resonance! Tempo is hard to do in green (it mostly shades into straight-up aggro, as this does) but the tradeoff of pushing through lots of damage now vs. a token army later definitely gestures in that direction. I wonder about +2/+2 on the sacrifice effect, though that would make this a lot better than Temur Runemark.

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  3. Rare Blue Aggro Instant costing 2. Yikes.

    Melodic Casting 1U
    Instant (R)
    Create a 1/1 blue Elemental creatures with flying. If this is the third spell you cast this turn, instead create three of these tokens instead.

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    Replies
    1. Blue aggro? Yeah, that's hard. I would have expected a combat effect (+X/+0, unblockable, etc.) but the token making is cool and innovative. I really like the "if third spell" clause as a way to imitate storm without, you know, actually being storm. There's some tension here between instant speed and "you cast"-- maybe the "you" could just be deleted?

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  4. I got 5 4 3 3 3. Nice idea for a challenge btw

    So. Green Instant Uncommon CMC 3 Midrange

    Revitalized Strength 1GG
    Instant (U)
    Choose two:
    *Untap target creature you control
    *Target creature becomes indestructable until end of turn
    *Target creature becomes hexproof until end of turn
    *Target creature fights another creature.

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    Replies
    1. Mini-"Command" modal card is cool. Hard to balance, though, because players have to have a reason to choose any combination of the two modes. In this case "fight" is a relatively powerful mode (especially with indestructible), even assuming it's supposed to target a creature you control. "Untap" is a relatively weak mode. There's also the problem of hexproof and indestructible doing very similar things in many cases. I'd like to see something like +2/+2 until end of turn in the place of indestructible or untapping.

      Is the intent that all modes target the same creature?

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  5. I agree on some prts, but a big green creature untapping, blockibg and fighting can be a 2 for two. Hexproof protects from more than destruction... Auras, exile, bounce, shrink. It can be a counterspell and fight...

    And as you noted it can target multiple creatures. It is a card I would have loved in many past standard seasons

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