#I have a limited amount of mana and low value friends with high mana cost are simply not worth keeping in my deck. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inventors-fair · 4 years

Text

Art’s Second Chance - Group Commentary

There were a lot of great submissions this week, with every submission having some interesting things going for it! Let’s move on to the commentary! (It’s below the cut!)

@shandylamb - Essence Mage (Aura Extraction)

This is a very appealing design, and very strong as a potential three-for-one for just three mana. Flashing in a first-striking blocker isn’t a shabby backup plan, either. Limiting your ability to cast the spell to the lifespan of the creature is also a reasonable check on it.

The first strike may sort of be overkill on the card; I’m not sure if it was included to help make the card feel more red, but the card is already fairly potent without it.

Small formatting notes: Flash usually appears on its own line, and only the first word in a string of keywords is capitalized. Instant and sorcery don’t need to be capitalized either. “As long as you control ~, you may cast that card, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell” may be slightly more standard formatting.

Scorpio System - Queen of Putrefaction (Crawling Filth)

The delta on this card between the best case and the worst case is quite large; you need to be sacrificing several creatures to it for it to be okay, but past that it quickly becomes potentially game-ending. The home of this effect isn’t well-defined in the color pie, as there aren’t many cards that tap down multiple lands for an indefinite amount of time (for good reason). Black and green are plausible fits, as they can destroy lands, although generally on the rare occasions where mass land tapping has been a thing, it’s been in white or blue.

I do like that this design also produces a fairly large body in the circumstances where it does shut down the game, which can often serve as a finisher. The art is also a great fit for this effect.

@starch255 - Lord of Lightning (Frantic Purification)

I’m not totally certain exactly how the mechanics of the card are supposed to work; choosing a number uniformly at random between zero and the number of legal targets and then choosing that many of them at random and flipping a coin for each possible target both result in each target having a 50% chance of taking damage, but produce different distributions. The former is a little closer to what the text of the card suggests, but would be something of a hassle to actually do in play. Either way, it doesn’t hugely affect the overall power level of the card.

This is a very funny use of this art, and recasts a piece that isn’t inherently comedic into a comedic piece of art without undercutting it.

@emmypupcake - Deduplicate (Stitch in Time)

This is an excellent use of this art, reconceptualizing what it represents while still making perfect sense.

Blue is a bit of an odd home for this effect, although Leyline of Singularity provides some precedent, and every color has gotten a little bit of duplicate punishment here and there over the years. That said, the core effect is creature destruction, which is very unusual in blue; I think this may border on a break, depending on how one feels about Leyline of Singularity’s place in the color pie. The implementation also feels a bit less blue than Leyline of Singularity, which is arguably nodding toward’s blue’s ability to mess with types.

The power level also feels a bit low; while it has the potential to be a many-for-one effect, especially against tokens, and can bypass hexproof and indestructible, it feels pretty weak compared to something like Winnow, which was not particularly remarkable. (It also compares poorly to Maelstrom Pulse, but that’s an exceptionally powerful card, so it’s not necessary to measure up to that standard to be good.)

An interesting twist on this card might be to allow you to choose a creature not controlled by the player you target; that would give it synergy with clone effects. As is, it’s a narrow enough hoser that I’m not sure where you’d fit it into a deck. (Even as a sideboard card against token strategies, there are probably other options.)

@ignorantturtlegaming - Form of the Leviathan (Amugaba)

This is a cool out-of-the-box use of this art. While there’s nothing that specifically suggests transformation into a leviathan as opposed to just a leviathan-like creature, that’s true to a degree of the original Form of the Dragon art.

Much like Form of the Dragon, this card is something that certain decks just won’t be able to beat, but it trades FotD’s clock for a much more challenging one-turn damage threshold to meet, especially given that the card will be able to lock down all but the widest boards after the first turn.

I suspect that many games that involve this card will tend to drag a bit, depending on its owner’s own board presence and what answers, if any the other player has.

@ghost31415926535 - Rhorkahn, the Unified (Sigiled Paladin)

This card is certainly exciting; tutoring for two cards every time it attacks is very powerful, even with some deckbuilding restrictions, and its ability to find additional copies of itself makes it hard to permanently deal with. (Legendary is a very important check on this card’s power.) It’s hard for a four mana card in three colors that doesn’t generate any immediate value to be too powerful, but this certainly is a strong effect if it gets going. Making the cat the knight is a clever inversion.

@misterstingyjack - Lummi, Formless Friend (Shapeshifter Token)

Partner cards that interact with what they’re partnered with is an interesting design vein, and I like that this art feels like an actual friend. A card that only works if it’s your commander is a bit limited, but they’ve certainly printed cards before that make more sense as commanders than as part of the 99. (The entry specified that this card is for a Commander Legends-type set, where I think it makes a lot of sense.) The ability to sort of double-down on a single partner is also powerful and interesting, and the decision to make it a 1/1 rather than a full clone is also an interesting drawback.

This card is a bit of a design risk, as it potentially limits the space for very expensive partner creatures with powerful effects, but that’s probably nothing that the commander format can’t handle. Partner is an extremely powerful mechanic, and while the breadth that a deck gets out of having two functionally different commanders likely often outweighs the benefits of being able to double down, but this is definitely a card that with the potential for impact at many levels of the format.

@nine-effing-hells - Yaran-Shesh, the Keeper of Silence (Gloom Sower)

The first line of text is a somewhat risky one, but the ship has largely already sailed on it, and this card is somewhat safer than other cards with that text due to its high cost. The most comparable precedent for this card may be Novablast Wurm, but this comes with both a greater threat of coming down early and a greater risk of getting blown out. (As you lose your creatures first.) That it keeps creatures from being played productively effectively sells the hopelessness angle.

@milkandraspberry - Corpse Bride (Veiled Shade)

I’m not completely sure that I completely understand the story being told by this card, but the flavor text is strong and evocative.

While this can technically be a very large creature for just three mana with a little work, I don’t think that giving it a creature keyword or a slightly better base body would be out of line.

I also think that the triggered ability could be simplified a bit, if it only works on angel cards. Angels tend to, with few exceptions, have pretty close to equal power and toughness; the card could just always check the power of the exiled card without affecting its overall power level too much.

@hypexion - Angel of Lamentations (Angel of Flight Alabaster)

This is a great complete package, making great use of the art. It’s not a huge creative departure from either the concept of Angel of Flight Alabaster or the mechanics on existing cards like Ghoultree, but it makes a lot of sense together. At rare, given that it specifically counts creature cards in the graveyard, it could probably go to 5WW, but that’s very minor.

@dabudder - Peace-seeking Bracheweft (Briarhorn)

This card exists in the space of being a brutal anti-aggro card in what would presumably be an archetype that’s already very strong against aggro decks, making it fairly polarizing. This is a great use of the Briarhorn art, which does have pacifist vibes in its interactions with the little birds.

@abzanhero - True Righteousness (Soul Parry)

This card attempts to overcome the inherent weakness of auras with just brutal raw power. Even considering the limited range of legal targets, this card is almost unbeatable against many decks if it resolves, and if you’re on the play then your opponent may have as little as two mana with which to remove whatever you target with this before it does so. On the flip side, it still has many of the weaknesses that auras traditionally do.

This is a very nice use of this art, and does what I was hoping many entries would do (and what many entries did), which is to call attention to a cool piece of art that folks may not have seen.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Corpsedance Duo (Grave Exchange)

There were many cards this week that interpreted a creature card’s art as a noncreature or vice versa, and, of them, this is one of the biggest reaches - it’s somewhat unusual for creature art, which makes the final product more striking.

Mechanically, I feel like this card has a lot going for it. The second ability has never appeared in that precise form on a creature card before, and it’s a nice combo with the first ability without that combo specifically representing a huge spike in the card’s power level. The substantial mana cost on the ability hampers most of the easy combos you’d otherwise get out of this as well. This card only narrowly missed the winners’ circle.

@demimonde-semigoddess - Demon of Darkening Skies (Archdemon of Paliano)

This card is a really cool concept, but I feel like it’s held back by the fact that in almost all circumstances, your opponents will just sacrifice lands. By the time you’re casting a six-mana creature spell, a land will often be pretty expendable for them, and it denies giving Demon of Darkening skies any protection. It’s still a decent card as a flying trampler that forces them to lose something on ETB, but the unique part of the ability will rarely come into play.

@sorustyitshines - Angel of Mourning (Defiling Tears, Original Full Art)

I love this full art, and the card itself is powerful - a conditional Ravenous Chupacabra with an easier mana cost (and playable in monowhite) and substantial additional upside. In that regard, it might even be a little bit too powerful. The total package definitely services the art better than Defiling Tears does, and the flavor text is very clever.

@tmstage - Truesight Maskmaker (Agent of Masks)

Very clever use of this art. I’m not certain whether “instead it doesn’t” is intended to keep the permanent from entering the battlefield at all, or allowing it to enter the battlefield, but not as a copy of anything, but the latter is cleaner rules-wise, and because most of the time a permanent would enter the battlefield as a copies of a thing, that permanent is a 0/0 creature or an otherwise blank permanent, this effectively blanks most such cards either way.

You note that this card is designed for a Commander supplemental product, and it certainly makes the most sense in a format where clone effects are fairly common. That said, this is a quite narrow hoser, and could likely have a more competitive statline for its cost. Hoser cards also tend to be fewer colors, to increase the number of decks they can be played in, although that’s far from a hard rule.

I very much like the flavor text and the overall theming.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Dungeon Follower - (Pay No Heed)

Improbably, this week saw two entries built around the creature types used as part of Zendikar Rising’s Party mechanic, both designed to punish other players for using them. Counting creatures that your opponents control in general is relatively lightly used design space, and while there’s probably good reasons it doesn’t turn up too too often, this is an interesting application. (I’m assuming that, for the sake of this mechanic, “the enemy’s party” is defined by the rules to mean something like “the largest party of the parties of your opponents.”)

Given that it explicitly uses the Party mechanic, this card presumably exists in an environment where a substantial fraction of the creatures are one of the specified types, but even then, the power level on this card is fairly low. That’s totally fine for a common, however. The card could probably be mono-blue; while counting enemy creatures to determine your size doesn’t feel super blue, it doesn’t really have a defined home anywhere, and I don’t know that this card is powerful enough to justify the asks that multicolor cards make in a limited environment.

@gollumni - Death of a Comrade - (Funeral March)

The second of the two cards this week that punish your opponents for playing cards of the Party creature types, this is a savage three-for-one removal much of the time. In an environment with Party (which I’m assuming this exists in), this will generally have a target of one of the appropriate types, and isn’t blank even if it doesn’t. This is probably a bit slow for constructed, but always makes the cut in limited.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants - Striking Enlightenment - (Idle Thoughts)

Of all of the submissions this week, this card was one of the hardest to evaluate. The idea of a card where the Overload cost is a drawback because it does something that you wouldn’t want to hit all targets is an interesting ones, and very Modern Horizons-y.

On the play, this card has the potential to just end the game when cast on turn two, as it will often leave an instant-light opponent with one land in play and four random cards from their deck, which is a game-losing position much of the time. As this effectively undoes the mulligan process while mulliganing down to just a few cards, there’s a very good chance of mana flood or screw happening from such a position. This does carry some risk for the caster, but the caster at least has the benefit of getting to play a second land first. Ticking the overload cost up to three almost completely solves this issue, however.

@snugz - Faithful’s Respite - (Angelic Curator)

Up until a few days ago, I would have said that this card was a bit of an issue because they don’t make cards that are just better than basic lands - that lacking a basic land type and being non-basic weren’t considered sufficient drawbacks to justify a land having upside over a basic land. They’ve since demonstrated a shift in that philosophy with the Pathway lands in Zendikar Rising. That said, I think this clean level of upside on what’s otherwise as good as a plains may be pushing things a bit. Lands don’t need a ton of upside to be playable over basics even with small downside, and this card significantly changes the way white decks play in formats that it’s in.

@shakeszx - Seedsinger - (Renewal)

The power level on this card is high despite adding the mana at a somewhat awkward time purely for the draw power it represents. Generally, cards don’t add mana during your upkeep unless the card is an odd gimmick like Braid of Fire, although there’s nothing about doing so that isn’t functional.

@dimestoretajic - Repay Evil (Evaporate)

This is one of the most interesting submissions from an art-repurposing standpoint, as it’s a white spell that depicts a spell being cast by a character that is very far from how white-aligned characters are usually coded in Magic - it’s an orc or goblin-like character in dark robes. (That’s not to say that there aren’t white-aligned Magic characters that are slightly monstrous and wear dark robes, but it’s a less common look.) On one hand, it’s a bit jarring, but it’s also a bit imagination-stirring.

The technique of making a permanent extra-vulnerable by making it an aura when it otherwise has no reason to be isn’t one that Magic uses often, but it’s reasonable here, and the flavor text does a lot of work in tying the whole package together.

@socialpoison - Oath of Service (Commander’s Authority)

Commander’s Authority was one of the cards that inspired this contest in the first place, so I was really excited to see it here. I like that the effect chosen is one that has above-average synergy with the Rancor recursion clause.

@mardu-lesbian - Daring Defiance (Thunderous Might)

This card feels a smidge odd in red and perhaps odder in black, but the most interesting thing about this card to me is the decision to make it a sorcery, rather than an instant. The “obvious” version of this card is for it to be an instant, because that makes it much easier to engineer situations where you loot for a larger value than two, in several ways. Making it a sorcery makes it significantly more puzzle-y to try to get that extra value off.

--------------------------------

I had a lot of fun with the designs this week, and I’m looking forward to the next! I believe that I’m the last of your guest judges in the rotation, so I think we may be getting back to your regular hosts next week. Looking forward to it!

- @teaxch

#inventors fair #group commentary #arts second chance #teaxch #mtg #magic the gathering #custom card

9 notes · View notes