Blood on the Wind
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your end step, if an opponent was dealt combat damage this turn, put a scent counter on Blood on the Wind.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, create X 1/1 red Vampire creature tokens with haste, where X is the number of scent counters on Blood on the Wind. Exile those tokens at end of combat.

Rigmaroller |
Artifact Creature - Robot Advisor

Whenever another player casts a spell during your turn, create a 1/1 white Robot Advisor artifact creature token. If that player was a teammate, you and that player each create a token instead.

It fabricates automated representatives to handle cases with utmost lethargy.

3/3

Matryoshka Nesting Doll

Artifact Creature — Construct
, : Create a token that’s a copy of this creature, except the token is X/X where X is one less than this creature's base toughness or if X would be 0 or less, X is 1 instead. Then this creature loses this ability.
She's full of surprises!
4/4

ok so... I'll be honest. I haven't started grading this yet and I don't know when I'm gonna. I'm going through a really tough place right now in my personal life and it's taking everything I've got to just focus on the things I have to get done for my job. thinking about starting this feels so unbelievably daunting. it's honestly hard to even post this, but I consider many of you my friends (in fact, some of you number among my oldest friends at this point) so I felt like I wanted to share that. I'm really sorry.

I'm so, so sorry to hear that. I'm rooting for you.

im sorry to hear that, i wish you all the best and hope things get better for you

You're allowed to take breaks. That goes for everyone here. Stay healthy and hope you feel better soon.

Sending Love —
Instant (C)
Each player gains 2 life.
Draw a card.
Feel better, razorborne! Take as much time as you need!

We're all rooting for ya bud, take all the time you need.

Your personal life always takes precedence. We can be patient.

Take care, Raz.

Take care, Raz

ok it turns out what I needed to do was admit to the block in order to clear it. I did wind up starting grades yesterday and now they're finished. thanks to everyone for the kind words, I love you all very much. as a warning, this was a relatively low-scoring round, which may be the fault of my current mental state, so if you feel like I scored you too low please feel free to blame that. you're all wonderful, both at card design and as friends.

reminiscent of mirror-sigil sergeant but cheaper and easier to use. as a 4-drop it's allowed to be powerful, but this is gonna take over the game if you give it, like, one turn, especially because it gains removal resistance so the only thing that can stop it once you have even a single copy is a sweeper. I like the idea but I'd just have it make illusion tokens that weren't copies, so you don't get the exponential-growth aspect. would also make the wording a little easier. would also make redirecting it more pointful: as-is the end result is just that one of your phantasmancers dies either way, so why bother keeping the original around?
2/5

I like this! it's cute. lotta text, which is unfortunate, but as useless as the 7+ ability will be in most contexts, the card would be less charming without it. I wonder if you could get around the X cost by just moving the life loss into the ability? "lose life equal to the number of evolution counters on Achrel, then put an evolution counter on it" sort of deal. you can also save a lot of space with the convention of using a legend's first name in text references 'cause you say "Achrel, Ebon Mastermind" three times here and boy are those a lot of letters. You might even be able to combine the first two abilities into one line. I dunno, I just like the design but my eyes glaze over at the wall of text and I'm trying to work my way around that, y'know? but I think the issue is basically just formatting, not design.
4/5

seems pretty reasonable. would probably feel more innovative if the reality strobe cycle didn't already exist, but if they were gonna make a gold version this feels like a very solid entry for Boros. balance might be a bit off, in that those were mostly 1-2 mana effects and this has the same CMC values for what is, at best, a 3-drop but probably 4, but I feel like making it a 2/2 instead doesn't really change the design, nor does raising some of the numbers a bit to make it more exciting, and I don't remember any of the Strobe cycle having that much format impact anyway so there's probably room.
3/5

feels like basically assemble the legion with extra steps, although the first ability is some nice lord synergy with other fractal sources. although I've always been ambivalent about fractals as a concept 'cause tokens and counters are hard to handle physically unless you're either carrying around a large bag of dice or using official token cards. they didn't cause too much of a problem, just not my favorite design space. I also didn't realize triangle numbers were technically quadratic, but I looked it up and you're right so hey, neat.
3/5

oh, that's fun. kinda heartmender-adjacent, but only for itself and takes a bit more work. (in exchange for doing more as a body.) tapping it and paying the cost is non-trivial, especially since you shrink your 4/2 in the process, so it becomes a real question whether it's worth keeping it around. I want to say it should be a 2/1 but at modern power levels, I think 3/1's actually probably fine.
4/5

technically explicitly bounded unless you're counting the ability to make 0/0s once the counters run out, but I think it's broad enough and can make enough that it meets the spirit of the challenge if not the letter. I wish the 9-16 reward was a bit more than just giving you a fairly flimsy ward cost. getting 9 mana and dumping all your counters in one go is a pretty hefty ask, so I feel like I should get something more. also I'd just make it 9+ and not include a higher bound so I can have fun with proliferate stuff. I'd also make the goblin range 1-2. on balance... seems like an easy first pick in limited, giving you access to three 5/5 fliers in one card. depends how slow the format is but that's a lot of value. hard to imagine ever using this for goblins. the activation should probably also be sorcery speed, to avoid the on-board combat trick.
3/5

I worry about memory issues in that the only reference you have for what the card is supposed to be exists in a hidden zone. maybe not that bad in practice since you'll likely be doing the same thing repeatedly, but still. also a little scary as a cost-cheating mechanism: dramatic entrance says you're probably good, but I'd still be worried about a factory that prints a new blightsteel colossus every turn. reminiscent of enduring ideal but cheaper, for a better card type, and doesn't have Epic.
3/5

I was all ready to go with my old standard of complaining about modal spells that just use modes to avoid committing to a single design but actually that's not what this is at all. the flexibility matters here, because you'll need to pick the best one for the current situation. I think the numbers might be a little too good for such simple recursion: the days of air elemental as the ideal 5-drop are long gone, but a 4/4 flier for 5 is still a pretty strong body, and one that never really dies is gonna be pretty annoying to play against, especially in limited. I'd drop it to 3/3, and maybe drops the 6s to 5s in the other two bodies as well. honestly I think the scale might just be wrong for the design: you want your ferret knights to be dying, so a cheaper version of this that makes smaller, more fragile bodies lets you actually use the card's primary mechanic. maybe cost, 2/1 first striker, 1/3 lifelinker, and 1/1 flier?
3/5

see the thing about this is I want to be like "it's fine but it's just missing something" but the thing it's missing would be incredible flavor text and it has that so I actually really like it. fauna shaman vibes but in black, and I like how you can keep building up the one token or you can use other good-to-sacrifice creatures to start an army. very cute and very fun to play with.
5/5

I think it's probably for the best that you couldn't find a way to make this scale infinitely: it's good to have a cap on these sorts of things. I feel like it should also be able to make a 1/1 if you don't have any, though. probably needs to cost a little more then, but I like it better if it's more self-contained.
3/5

curious what the full archetype this is signposting would look like, 'cause typically if the theme is +1/+1 counters you want them to stay on, but hey, Undying exists so that's at least one good use for this. I could easily imagine this leading to a fun format of some variety. and I like how, in principle, the effect is pretty value-neutral, so you can stick it on a pretty reasonable body without worrying.
5/5

that seems really strong. every turn, I get to make as many non-sacrificing spark elementals as I have shamans? (and mana, but still.) there's enough cheap shamans to make this very scary, and also to give me a lot of post-wrath resilience, while also just being a pretty playable body on its own. also, for what it's worth, while Typal is the new term for type-based decks, the card type is Kindred. I knew what you meant, though.
2/5

this feels like it's trying to be bitterblossom but I don't think it really works. milling is a less engaging drawback than life loss because most of the time your opponent can't interact with it. it can make some of that up by fueling graveyard shenanigans but this uses exile. and 1/1s with menace just isn't as useful as 1/1s with flying. and, of course, it's not like every card needs to be (or should be) as strong as bitterblossom, but still, this feels like an overcorrection in a lot of different directions simultaneously even before you get into the awkward scaling of the mill. I get that the point was probably to make it a bit more viable for limited, but honestly if you just made it a small-ish set number like 3 and milled to the yard like normal (maybe dropping menace? dunno.) I think this'd be a much more interesting card. I also don't love the flavor, although I think I get what you were going for.
2/5

feels strong. tutoring artifacts into play every turn for no card cost is a lot, and so is making arbitrarily large tokens. getting to do both, on a body that's also a decent wall, ducks a lot of cheap toughness-based removal, and pumps other things... I dunno, it just doesn't seem like this card has any real focus to it. it's just a bunch of being good at artifacts, combined into a package that feels like an invitation to break it in some very obvious ways.
1/5

cute! I like how it's using Eternalize tech, which is usually a buff, but in a way that's probably a drawback since generic [c]zombify[/b] targets are often much larger than 4/4. that balances out the dredge, which then fills your yard to find more targets, making it a very interesting self-synergy. has the balance problem all dredge cards have, so I don't know if it can really go in a standard-legal set, but it's an interesting concept for, like, modern masters or something.
4/5

Temjen! this is cute! good work! protection from rats is a very fun idea here!
5/5

ooh, interesting. feels maybe a little undercosted but I think I'm comparing it to [c]assemble the legion[/c] in my head and that's obviously not fair on multiple axes. still, 3cmc feels right. puts it in line with urabrask's forge, which it's better than in some ways and worse than in others. but cost aside it's really fun and I could imagine it being a strong staple in the sideboards of a lot of RDW builds.
4/5

hard to judge stuff that mechanically can't fit in a standard set, but this is nice. maybe a little strong: the dueling version of it, where it's a bigger dosan the falling leaf with a less punishing response seems perfectly fine, but this is clearly for, like, a 2HG product or something and in a lot of team formats you just share your turn with your teammate, so this makes two 1/1s every time they cast pretty much anything. that seems like a concern, y'know?
3/5

this feels like it's trying to be too literal. like, it's not a bad representation of a Matryoshka doll, but it's also doing a lot of really weird and complicated rules/wording stuff to get there. I think a more successful version would probably look more like a variant of mitotic slime. I'm also not sure it makes sense to catch the 0 condition: I assume that's to fit the criteria, but it's not like Matryoshka dolls have infinite of the smallest size inside them. they're pretty finite, and doing the rules contortions to avoid that makes the card less resonant while also making it harder to parse.
1/5

thanks again for your willingness to be patient, even though it ultimately didn't become necessary. again, relatively low-scoring round in general, but there were a couple 5/5s. I think I'm gonna give the win to Temjen! congrats, nominating now, new round soon.

Modern Magic design has made be very resistant to add the "something missing." Obviously not a unique take, but if I can make a card I like these days with rules text under 30 words, I feel like I've accomplished something.