This was an attempt to make it worthwhile to spend more than a creature's mana cost to reanimate it.
But there are better ways.

Grow Back
Sorcery
Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. If that creature has a mana value 3 or less, create a token that's a copy of it.

My thought was that green's big on making creature copy tokens, but that mv restriction sounds pretty white.

Inherit The Earth
Sorcery
Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. If that creature has a mana value 3 or less, create a token that's a copy of it.

You could probably stretch this and make it a card, but it would feel weird.

Can you believe this only got a 1/5? Everybody lauds drama, yet comedy goes forever unappreciated.


This guy was nominated for CotW! It got slaughtered but, I'll take it as a win.
It also inspired me to make a better card. Which I think I might have made before?


Center Of Learning
Legendary Land
: Add
When ~ is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, draw a card.
With Alexandria in ashes, Baghdad is the new seat of knowledge.

The legend rule doesn'

Hurkyl, Master Wizard got me thinking about some things that would work in Starstill.

Odagua, Omni-Adept
Legendary creature - Human Shaman
Trample
For each card type among permanents you control, if you control 3 or more permanents of that type, permanents of that type have ward .
For each card type you control 3 or more of ~ gets +3/+3 and has ward .
1/1



Indomitable Landscape
Land
Indestructible, trample
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add or .



Cross-Disciplinary Learning
Sorcery
~ costs less to cast, where X is the number of permanents you control of the type you control the least of from among the types artifact, creature and enchantment.
Draw six cards.

Manifold Revelation
Sorcery
Look at the top five cards of your library. For artifacts, for enchantments and for creatures, you may reveal a card with mana value less than the number of permanents of that type you control. Put all cards revealed this way onto the battlefield.
Look up to the skies. Look down at the earth. Look betwixt, and find one's self.

The hard parts of wording this are 1) making it clear you don't look at a new five cards every time, and 2) making very clear you do it once for each card type.
Is mono green the right place for this?
Also, that mana cost? Seems okay. The setup required to get 5 mana's worth of stuff makes it hard for this to come out of nowhere.
Should it just work for every permanent type? Not worried about walkers, but a guaranteed land is guaranteed value. Eh, let's try.

Manifold Revelation
Sorcery
Look at the top five cards of your library. For card type, you may reveal a card with mana value less than the number of permanents of that type you control. Put all cards revealed this way onto the battlefield.
(The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal.)
Look up to the skies. Look down at the earth. Look betwixt, and find one's self.

Let's see how many of you know what this is about:

Command Of The Dual Walkers
Instant
Choose two:

• Create three 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens.
• Gain control of target planeswalker.
• Exile each opponent’s graveyard.
• ~ deals 4 damage to any target.

Most of these abilities are straight off Syl, the Mastermind and Chardis, the Destroyer.
The graveyard bit was added because it's a great thing to have on a charm.
The control ability was restricted to walkers because I think charm abilities should tend towards the niche.
Also I upped the damage of the burn.
I guess most of the abilities aren't straight off Syl, the Mastermind and Chardis, the Destroyer.

By creating this, I just made a fantasy fantasy card, of a fantasy fantasy card, of a fanfic, of a card game.

Aether Lotus
Artifact
: Add three mana of any one color. If all of this mana is spent to cast a spell, it gains cascade. (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.)
“The power of the lotus reminds me of the possibilities for this world … and my fantasies. I will not rest until I’ve achieved them.”

As the judge pointed out, this isn't great as a sorcery. As I pointed out, that doesn't really fit with the trap template.
So let's fix that.

Psychic Backdoor
Sorcery
If an effect an opponent controlled returned a creature card to that player's hand this turn, you may pay rather than pay this spell's mana cost and you may cast it at instant speed.
Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a card from it. That player discards that card.
Knock, knock. I'm here.

I had just found a better way to word my last submission when I lost my internet connection, so here it is:



This doesn't stop tutors, but regrowth and bounce are fair game. It's narrower, but I think maybe this is better? Too bad creatures that bounce themselves to avoid removal are considered pretty underpowered nowadays. Guess you just have to bounce them yourself.

Here's an oldie but a goodie:

Anybody remember that contest? Good times. I was tempted to submit this to Razorborne's YMTCotW contest as a trap, but it wasn't original.


My next thought was to submit this, but it felt derivative of the above. Should have done it anyway.


is it better with a simple "can't be the target of spells or abilities"? I thought it would be nice to go pseudo-hexproof over shroud.
Hex screen? -Highlights the hexproofyness
Translucent Mist? - highlights the one way nature of the pseudo hexproof. Just need something that sounds less like a physical object to back up the name.

You totally should've, imho. No such thing as self-plagiarism on YMtC. But others may feel differently—would love to hear people's thoughts on this.

Yeah, I guess it depends on what the contest-holder wants. Is it cheating to not actually come up with the card in response to the prompt? I kind of figured it was.
I actually thought about entering a card I already came up with for the card that returns to hand round, but didn't. I thought I already posted it here, but it looks like I just wrote it down in some notes. For some reason that former seemed like cheating, but the latter was ok to me. I guess I figure the cards not really officially settled until I post it?

Creation Elemental
Creature - Elemental
Convoke (Your creatures can help cast this spell. Each creature you tap while casting this spell pays for or one mana of that creature’s color.)
When Creation Elemental enters the battlefield or attacks, choose one, if this is the third time an ability of a creature you control named Creation Elemental activated, choose any number instead:

• Add .
• Create a 3/3 green Elemental creature token.
• Draw a card.

6/6

This only fits on a card if you drop the reminder text.
The bullet points take up a lot of space
I was hoping to make something like Demigod of revenge that wants to combo into another copy of itself.
Best power comparison is the titan cycle. This is probably stronger than any of those when it's on the board, but (outside of the weird combos I'm hoping to encourage) is harder to get out. I think it works? The card draw might be too much better than the other options.


Abrupt Imitator
Creature - Elemental Shapeshifter
Haste
You may have ~ enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield until end of turn, except it has haste.
2/2
This was pretty much created as an enabler of the above.
Protean Raider? I don't think there's ever been a "copy until turn's end" before. Haste is a big upside, but I'm not sure this is as good as Clone.


Eternity Spirit
Creature - Spirit
You may sacrifice a white nontoken creature and a black nonntoken creature you control rather than pay ~'s mana cost.
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature. Its controller gains life equal to its power.
3/3
I've been pondering a elements of nature vs. societal forces world. That's where these both come from.

The way I look at this as someone who does go back to his old designs to try and see what works (but also lacks an understanding of how those designs would work if printed, at least on the level of others here), I would say any design that hasnt been submitted for a contest already is worth submitting the first time if only to get constructive criticism--contests are easier to get that as the card itself isnt in a vacuum, but among similar designs.

I simmered it down to the most important bit. It's a combo piece.

Creation Elemental
Creature - Elemental
Creature cards in your hand have Prism (You may tap one creature you control to help you cast this spell. If you do, it reduces the cost of this spell by one mana of each of that creature's colors.)
When Creation Elemental enters the battlefield add .
6/6

Elvish Surveyor
Creature - Elf Scout
Whenever a land enters the battlefield tapped under your control, add .
1/1
I shall not weep until there are no new lands to chart.

So, I'm not sure if this card is balanced.
I'm not too worried about the sweet Boundless Realms combo- that's just cool. Cultivate becomes very powerful, but not enough to make me really afraid. Bad River though, that scares me a little.
Not sure if you'd be tempted to run extra tap lands to go with this instead of using this to support your taplands. Until of course you realize that by having multiple surveyors you can net extra mana off of lands coming in tapped. Not sure if that's alarming or not.
I need input on this one.


Mirrodin's Avenger
Creature - Human Rebel
~'s base power is equal to the number of poison counters you have.
*/2

This one I need less input on. It's a hoser. It hoses. It doesn't even hose early game.

So I made a card


Then I realized I could have made it way cooler.

Slavering Beast
Creature - Beast
~ can't attack or block unless you control a Food.
3/3
"Who's a good boy? Is it you?"

This card won a thing.