Shared Growth Sorcery (C)
Each player creates a tapped basic Forest land token.
"No one owns nature; it is here for all of us to experience." I always enjoy these sorts of cards that let you just skip a phase of the game to jump to one you're better at. I feel like in practice it'd just be a mirrored
rampant growth (giving you an extra way to break symmetry if your opponent doesn't run any basics) but maybe doing it this way helps you break by giving your opponent a less likely to be useful land than you got. I do wonder if it's too strong, but I don't think it is. it's an interesting meta call for a midrange/ramp deck: really good against aggro but extremely dangerous against control. (and not great in the mirror, either, since you're the one spending a card.)
4/5Shallow Graves -
Enchantment
At the beginning of each player's end step, they may return a creature card that was put into their graveyard from anywhere this turn to their hand.
reminiscent of
oath of ghouls. probably needs to cost at least 2, but does seem very easy to build some interesting decks with. the anywhere part adds a particularly cute wrinkle. lotta potential for abuse, though, so I'd be much more cautious with the balance aspect.
3/5Song of Excess
Enchantment
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player discards a card at random.
Whenever a player discards a nonland card, each of that player's opponents may pay an amount of mana equal to the discarded card's mana value to copy it and cast the copy. (
The copy is cast without paying its mana cost)
Those who listen beyond the first discordant notes become entranced by the cacophany, an addiction few ever break.seems solid. slightly awkward that you pay the mana cost but then it's cast without paying the mana cost but I think that's the right wording. shouldn't be too hard to build around, and could be pretty fun for a certain type of player. a little unreliable in the long game since you have to make them have cards in hand but that just means running fellow symmetry-breaker all-star
howling mine or the like to keep them drawing.
3/5Fill the Junkyard -
Sorcery |
REach player discards their hand, then creates a tapped 2/2 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "
,
, Sacrifice this: Draw a card." for each creature card discarded this way.
Your ideas? Scrap them! seems like a really strong anti-control sideboard option. very cheap for a
wit's end, but also hits you so maybe
mindslicer is the better comparison. you're trading the delay on slicer for the tokens. in the right matchup, those tokens are probably a pretty significant upside, but also the deck where the symmetry breaks most in your favor is probably gonna be able to counter it, so that balances it out well. I'm really surprised that I'm convincing myself this can cost 4, but I think it can. well done.
4/5Starcharts Enchantment (R)
Each player may play an additional nonbasic land on each of their turns.
my concern here is that
exploration exists and is strictly better than this in three different ways. and don't get me wrong, exploration's a good card in some very specific circumstances, and I could see room for making a generally worse version, but this is unplayable for a lot of reasons and that's a bummer 'cause I really like it in theory. it's just not really fixable without significant changes. I'm also not really sure why it's red? I assume you wanted to move out of green for the nonbasic emphasis, but I don't think red was the color to move to given its propensity for
destroying them. not sure what color it should be. actually... ok, hear me out:
Starlit Port
Land
Starlit Port enters the battlefield tapped.
Each player may play an additional nonbasic land on each of their turns.
, pay 1 life: Add
.
I dunno. making it a land might be a terrible idea, for a lot of reasons. probably should just be an artifact. but still.
2/5Destruction of Individuality Enchantment (R)
All creatures lose all abilities, can’t have counters on them, and have base power and toughness 3/3.
hmm.
humility but for real bodies? certainly has potential. and a lot easier to break for you with token generators, too. the counter thing is interesting. I think I like it, although it begs the question why not prevent other modifications too, like auras and equipment? but I think it's better to do the gesture here and not try to spell out every single possible interaction or the card just gets bloated. overall seems plausibly printable and a potentially interesting top-end to a token deck.
3/5I love cards with flavor like this. I don't know what basically any of these words mean but it's just dripping with story. the card is interesting. is it too strong? feels pretty breakable but I don't exactly know how. I'm not sure why it's legendary, I tend to think that, on noncreatures, that should be reserved for when it makes a real mechanical difference, and this doesn't stack with itself so why bother, but that's not a big problem or anything, more a philosophical disagreement. I think this would be a dangerous card, but the sort of danger that makes Magic exciting.
4/5City Bus Artifact - Vehicle (U)
Haste
Crew 4
Any player may crew City Bus to gain control of it until end of turn. Crew City Bus only as a sorcery.
"Next stop: Mercadia City!"6/6
I dunno, dude, I want to like it but I think you should've referenced a better bus location, like Ravnica or Kaladesh or Los Angeles. that egregious misstep aside, it's cute. 4 is a high crew cost,
irontread crusher says a 6/6 can do it for 3, but this does cost
to cast and have haste. plus making it harder for your opponent is maybe good for you. that said it feels like part of the tradeoff you're looking for is a surprisingly efficient vehicle and for vehicles a big part of their efficiency comes not from their mana cost but from their crew cost, so that being hard to pay really cuts into how much value you can get out of this thing. I might even say raise the mana a bit and drop the crew to 2. but I really like the idea.
4/5Runeclad Brawler Creature - Human Barbarian |
RHaste
Whenever a player casts a spell outside of their own main phase, each of that player's opponents may draw a card.
2/1
nice! solid hate bear, trading the completeness of
dosan the falling leaf for a more plausible, aggressive body. I like how it even messes with combat tricks on your own turn so you're really stuck with sorcery speed if you don't want to hit the trigger. I also wonder if there's some combo opportunity where you
want to cast spells that make your opponent draw, kind of like a
forced fruition thing. maybe not as a full plan but I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Owling Mine and this reminds me of that. would love some flavor text but beyond that I think it's a pretty neat card.
4/5Circle of Life —
Enchantment — Saga (U)
I — Each player creates a 1/1 green Squirrel creature token.
II — Each player sacrifices a creature.
III — Each player creates a 3/3 green Beast creature token.
cute. maybe a little
too symmetrical, in that it's hard to really imagine getting much out of it. I guess if you can kill their 1/1 before the second trigger you get an edict, but you're still spending a card for that, and edicts are cheap enough that you can't score much of a discount. also, the end result by default is just waiting two turns for a
watchwolf that your opponent also gets, so even if your deck is built to capitalize, the maximum payoff is relatively low. might be interesting in, like, a Commander product though, or something else that's built for multiplayer.
3/5Karmic Misfortune Enchantment (R)
Whenever a player declares an attack, they sacrifice a permanent.
If you are out to do wrong, do not be surprised if nothing you do goes right. dang, sorry I missed this. it's really cool. maybe a little cheap, I might cost it at 3 'cause a repeated sacrifice scales really aggressively with the turn it comes down, but worst case your opponent can just wait a turn until they have a spareable land. but the idea is really cool, and the flavor's great.
5/5I feel like this might have been a better fit for
, and I also don't think you needed the second sentence. you're not gonna cast this unless you're under 3 cards, and your hand has to be literally empty for it to be better than
divination, so the consolation rider feels out of place. but I do like the concept.
3/5Orgy of Evidence
Sorcery
Each player investigates 12 times.
trying to put into words how much I love this card. I don't know if they'd actually print the word "orgy", but 12 investigates is such a hilariously high number and trying to fight with your opponent to actually spend the mana to cash them all in seems really fun. I wish there was flavor text but I still like it without it.
5/5Erith Tar, Captain of the Watchers Legendary Creature - Vedalken Soldier (U)
Vigilance
Untapped creatures get +1/+0.
3/3
oh, nice! I like how it even tells you how to abuse it by having the relevant keyword. are we at 4/3 vigilance with upsides for 3 yet? I don't know but also is it really an upside? it's technically symmetrical. since it never taps, I might just give it those stats and make it say "other untapped creatures" but that's wording. flavor's really fun, and I like how subtle the bonus is while still being hugely relevant, especially when vigilance is so often paired with defensive bodies.
5/5Anonymity Creature — Elemental IncarnationCards, spells and permanents have no names.
~ can't be blocked by legendary creatures.
"It is not such that I cannot remember
its title. It eschews such concepts in its entirety."
—Gadwick, the Wizened3/3 I appreciate the shout to legendary creatures in order to clarify the card's purpose, although the benefit seems marginal enough that the evasion ability becomes more of the central focus and that's not really symmetrical. still, decent
mirror gallery effect. cost feels reasonably in line with
mirror box. I think I'd like it more if the legend-related ability was something symmetrical as well (or, criteria aside, even if it was only positive for you) because the obvious thing to do with the first ability is run legends but then the card doesn't reward you for that, it just punishes your opponent. which I suppose is part of the symmetry-breaking, but I dunno, seems a little tenuous.
3/5some cool cards but overall a pretty tough round. definitely giving the win to
Knifethrower! congrats, nominating now, go join the next round.