It's Halloween season! So let's make cards to celebrate the coming holiday.

1) This contest will last 3 rounds. Scores are cumulative.
2) Each round, I will take the first thirteen entries. They need not be by the same people each round.
3) Assuming it doesn't end early due to hitting the 13 mark, rounds last at most 3 days.

Grading will be on the following rubric:
Pass/Fail: Did you meet the prompt? Failures will not be graded further.
5 points -- Power Level. Being over or under powered loses points. 5 represents a gold sweetspot, 4 most cards. Note that contrary to most spikes, I'll generally be more sympathetic to slightly under than slightly over.
5 points -- Flavor. Name, Flavor Text, and Flavorfulness of mechanics. Flavor text is not required to get a 5 here.
5 points -- Technicalities. Does your card work under the rules and the practices of design? Could it actually be printed on a card?
5 points -- 'Wow' Factor. Is your card actually interesting and unique or has it been done to death. Does it excite other than by pure power level?

Notes:
You will lose at least 1 point from Flavor if you use ~, CARDNAME, or some other name-replacement. If you don't care what your card's name is, why should I?
Renders will not effect your score in any way.


ROUND 1: PUMPKINS!
Nowadays, the symbol most associated with Halloween is the pumpkin: Pumpkin foodstuffs are everywhere, ripe gourds are festive decorations, and carved ones glare from stoops or serve as the heads of scarecrows. Fancy! Make me a Scarecrow (animate or otherwise), Jack-o-Lantern (again...), Pumpkin (somehow), or pumpkin-related related card.

But... typing... extra letters.

that is a really stupid rule

What if my card's name is "~"? Its just a lazy tool, I suppose I can actually type the name 2 or 3 times for that point...

- usually isn't used very often. Most people prefer ~.

Also, if you're going to type the eight letters in CARDNAME while either holding shift or witching capslock on and off, you might as well just type the actual.

Personally, I prefer to use a replacement since the name I start out with may not be the one I finish with, and I don't want to go back and change every instance of the name in the text.

Won't be participating until this rule is changed, as ~ is how I format my card names.

Some people get butthurt over the most meaningless ****.

Pumpkinhead |
Artifact — Equipment (U)
Equipped creature has fear and is a Scarecrow in addition to its other types.
Unattach Pumpkinhead: Target creature can't block this turn.
Equip
Nothing will surpass the fright / To cross the headless rider in the night.

I'm with PlaneShaper. Wizard's types out the names, why shouldn't we? After all, formatting is part of the contest!


Ravenous Pumpkin Patch
Enchantment Creature - Plant {U}
Defender
Ravenous Pumpkin Patch can block one additional creature for each other enchantment you control.
Creatures blocked by Ravenous Pumpkin Patch have -1/-1 for each other enchantment you control.
0/3

Since we are choosing sides, I'm with Planeshaper and Yarium on this one.

Jack O' Lantern
Artifact Creature
Intimidate
: Monstrosity 2
The shadows danced in it's hollow eyes, flicked across its jagged grin, daring the children to come closer.
1/1

Festive Smiling Gourd
Creature - Plant
Defender
Whenever Festive Smiling Gourd dies return it to the battlefield and transform it.
0/1
//////////////////////////
Spirit of All Hallows Eve (Black)
Creature - Spirit
Fear
Tap each creature blocking Spirt of All Hallows Eve. They don't untap durring their controllers next untap step.
"One should learn to respect the traditions of old, or they shall come to fear them."
4/1

(First try at card making so hope it goes over well)

Torchlight Jack
Artifact Creature - Plant Scarecrow
: Monstrosity 3. (If this creature isn't monstrous, put three +1/+1 counters on it and it becomes monstrous.)
When Torchlight Jack becomes monstrous, it deals 6 damage to each creature with flying and each player.
"When is a raven like a falling star?" - Kithkin riddle
3/3

It seems good, except you might want to consider how it would actually play out. With a 4 power and only a 1 toughness, it will most likely kill whatever 1/1 black creature that your opponent decides to chump block it with. Its tap ability will most likely never be a thing that matters because your creature is strong enough to kill anything that is strong enough to kill it.

Some suggestions, only because this is your first try at a card:

1. Make it , rather than 1.
2. Fear is generally considered outdated - simply because it always means "black creatures or artifact creatures". It's very flavorful on black creatures, but Wizards wanted the same ability on other colored cards, so they made "Intimidate", which is "creatures of this creature's colors or artifact creatures".
3. Tapping and keeping creatures tapped is a blue ability, not a black ability.
4. Change the word formatting. A more appropriate format would be, "Whenever this creature becomes blocked, tap each creature blocking it. Those creatures don't untap during their controller's next untap step."
5. As already stated, that ability will almost never be relevant. It's evasion means few creatures can block it, but it's low toughness and lack of trample means that players only want to block it with few creatures anyways. If they have a choice, it's more likely they'll block with their X/1 creature than their X/4 creature.

Other than that, the basic fundamentals of a real card are there! For a first try, this is a great job!

Thanks for all the imput.
1. I wanted to format it as such but wasnt sure how to make the 1 colorless in the mana cost appear as such.
2. Orginally I had intimidate instead of fear knowing it was the current workding but I had noticed another using fear and I felt the flavor was better so I put fear.
3. Agreed the ability is much more strickly blue. With black I was thinking it as the creature cowering in fear and having to take a turn to recover from dealing with it.
4. Thanks you, I knew something looked off on my wording but couldnt quite place it.
5. This was a bit of an oversight on my part. Orginal thought was to have thet trasform spirt be more of a vengful one hence the 4/1 p/t. I felt it needed a an abilty more than just the fear/intimidate. Decided on the 'cower in fear tap' likeing the feel of it but overlooked the p/t which I should have changed to reflect the ability more.

Of course alot of this oversight is because I was trying to get the card up quick durring work and didnt want to miss the 13 person cut off or have a name/idea stollen either haha.

For numbers in mana costs, just add them into the MC tags. [.mc]1[./mc] = and so forth. For your cost, [.mc]1g[./mc] becomes .

I have a complaint that that is not what Melvin is. Also ~ doesnt mean you don't care, it just means you don't have time.

Jack Lantern WW
Legendary Creature - Scarecrow Soldier
As long as Jack Lantern is untapped, other creatures you control have protection from black and gain vigilance.
2/2

I use ~ because it means I don't have to replace each instance of my card name every time I decide I want to change the name

it has nothing to do with not caring, that is just OP's uneducated opinion

Very true. Melvin cares more about watching the wheels turn, not to see what they do, but to see how they turn. New mechanics that play interestingly with old mechanics are what Melvin loves. However, Tevish Szat is trying to simply include all the player psychographics, and so he's totally in the right to put Melvin in here. It's not exactly what Melvin is, but Melvins do hate it most when mechanics are sloppily written or put together.


Except Vorthos does care. Vorthos wants to see a card say "her" instead of "him" when it matters. Vorthos cares if a name is so long that it gets all ugly-squished in the wording. So, at the end of the day, Vorthos does care if you didn't fully type out the name. He cries a small tear of sadness because you didn't take the 5 extra seconds to pay him attention.

So, what you're saying is that you don't care about it enough to make the adjustment? Perhaps you don't see it as practical, so you don't care to spend your time that way? Maybe it's frustrating to have to make that minor tweak again, and you care more about doing other things with those seconds instead?


Vorthos can be such an emo b*

I'm not sure if you're trying to sound like this

but you sound extremely patronizing