this wasn't even posted in YMtC so it should have been DISQUALIFIED but it wasn't so here we are make a card that uses an existing ability word in an unusual way. ability words are the italic ones that have no rules meaning but are associated with a certain line of text, usually a condition. these are different from "flavor words", the thing that D&D set did where they had no faith in their audience's ability to understand mechanical flavor without an explicit label. you can find a list of extent ability words here.

gonna start grading on Friday. go!

Battle Weary General
Creature ─ Human Soldier (U)
Bloodrush ─ , Discard Battle Weary General: Destroy target blocking creature.
Madness
4/4
Civil war had drawn passionate lines between families. But when he rolled over the body and barely recognized his brother, lines lost all meaning.

This is intended to be my submission, but given the fandom doesn't list a Duskmourn ability word, I wasn't sure if it would be considered a spoiler.

Feed the Machine
Sorcery
Parade! — Starting with you, each player chooses creatures they control until each creature they control has been chosen. You may sacrifice the first creature you chose. If you do, each other player sacrifices the first creature they chose and you repeat this process with the next creature chosen. (Stop when you don't sacrifice a creature.)

Thousand-Faced Hero

Legendary Creature
: Choose a card name. Thousand-Faced Hero gains the chosen name in addition to all its other names until your next turn ends.
Grandeur - Discard another card that shares a name with Thousand-Faced Hero: Put a +1/+1 counter on Thousand-Faced Hero. If the discarded card was an Artifact, Creature, or Land, Thousand-Faced Hero gains all activated and triggered abilities of that card for as long as it has that card's name.
1/1

The intent is that you should have a fine window to pay and re-up the name to keep abilities, but that if you want a really huge list of abilities you'll end up spending a lot of mana.

Occupation of Fenhead
Battle - Siege (U)
Enrage — Whenever Occupation of Fenhead is dealt damage, create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token.
Foul-smelling, bug-infested, and far-flung, Fenhead was considered the worst possible assignment for an Imperial soldier.


//

Peat-Torch Riot
Sorcery
Peat-Torch Riot deals damage to any target equal to the number of creatures you control.
Within just a few years, the deserters outnumbered those who stayed, and the Garrison burned.

5/5

Allure of Plunder |
Enchantment

Whenever an opponent reveals one or more cards from their library, that player loses life equal to the greatest mana value among the cards revealed.
, : Parley — Each player reveals the top card of their library. For each nonland card revealed this way, create a 2/2 black Pirate creature token with menace. Then each player draws a card.

Trophies of Battle
Enchantment (U)
Battalion - Whenever you declare an attack, create a tapped Treasure token. Then, if at least three creatures are attacking, draw a card.

Avalanche Elemental
Creature - Elemental (U)
Haste
Hellbent Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, create a 1/1 red Elemental creature token. If you have no cards in hand, that token gets gains haste until end of turn.
Falling is natural.
3/3

Eh, posting so I have something

Knights of Ikana
Creature - Skeleton Knight (U)
Adamant duality - This creature enters with a first strike counter if at least three white mana was spent to cast it. Otherwise, it enters with a menace counter on it.
4/4

Hellbound Hidetsugu —
Legendary Creature — Ogre Shaman (R)
Menace
Hellbent Grandeur — , , Discard a card named Hellbound Hidetsugu: If you have no cards in hand, this creature deals 13 damage to any target.
3/2

Underworld Hellsman -
Creature - Human Mercenary
First Strike
, Discard a card: ~ deals 1 damage to any target. Put a rev counter on ~.
Hellbent - At the beginning of your end step, if you have no cards in hand, remove all rev counters from ~ and draw that many cards.
His gunfire brings a crescendo of bloodshed and violence, a symphony none can afford to look away.
2/1

Sandsculpt Windreader
Creature - Golem Sage
When Sandsculpt.Windreader enters the battlefield, discard N cards, then draw N +1 cards.
Threshold - If there are seven or more cards in your graveyard, Sandsculpt Windreader has -2/-2.
4/4

starting grades!

so... that's not what Bloodrush is. I can see the thought process, given Bloodrush pumps attackers and this clears out their blockers, but still, just because an ability word doesn't have a rules definition doesn't mean it doesn't have a meaning. fortunately, though, there's another ability word that this does do this: channel. this could easily just be a channel card and work just as well, and combining that with madness is clever, although not far off ichor slick. still, seems like a solid card, if pretty underwhelming when you don't do the discard thing.
3/5

I kinda feel like this defeats the purpose of Eerie: the whole point is to expand Constellation's existing domain to include room activations, but this then loops Constellation back in to weaken that? if anything I'd expect the reward to be toward the room side of the trigger. otherwise why not just forget about rooms entirely and give it Constellation on its own? I get that it's supposed to feel like an upgrade but the upgrade is riding on the easier half so it winds up feeling more like a punishment. and it's also not super impactful: scry 1 isn't nothing, but if that's the only difference between the two then it doesn't feel worth the text space. I also know from having played against vein ripper how brutal that ward condition can be, and I'm not sure it's doing much here.
1/5

I suppose Parade is on the list I posted, so sure, that counts. my concern, though, is that this isn't very different from "Sacrifice a creature. If you do, each other player sacrifices a creature. You may repeat this process." you've added a bunch of extra words just to, as far as I can tell, get a little advance warning if your opponent is gonna misplay. most of the time it should be fairly obvious which creature they'd want to sac next, so seeing the order in advance doesn't have a huge impact on your choices but it does require a lot more work. I do think the underlying design is interesting, I just don't think Parade is adding much of anything.
2/5

I know the rules can handle there being legendary and non-legendary cards with the same name, but eh, I still don't think it's worth enabling. the card seems really underwhelming for a rainbow 5-drop: it's a 1/1 that doesn't do much of anything until I've paid at least a couple extra mana and discarded some extra cards. I'm sure there's some useful combos you can assemble (devoted druid and sphinx's disciple, for instance) but while that probably means this can't cost much less, it can certainly stand to have a real P/T. I'm debating if the name gimmick is necessary: feels like there's a way to word this that doesn't need it. ", exile a card: +1/+1 counter, gain abilities. beginning of upkeep, for each exiled card pay or graveyard it." or the like, then you can skip the name bit, keep the cards in an easier-to-track location, and avoid the weird timing on the activated. but then it wouldn't have Grandeur.
2/5

aw, cute. Enrage on a battle is clever, and I like it making 1/1s 'cause that gives you more things to plink it down with to get max value. I'm a little concerned that players might mistake the Enrage trigger as applying to its protector, but if that's a real problem it can be solved with reminder text. flavor's solid, and the mechanics flow nicely.
5/5

what happens if multiple creatures died, some but not all of which I controlled? I assume it applies if any of your creatures died, but the wording should make that clearer because there's a solid handful of ways to read it that have divergent mechanical implications. that said, I do quite like the idea. lot of parts fitting together very neatly here. I just don't know exactly what the card does.
4/5

if I play boggart harbinger, what zone is the card I find in when I reveal it? there's a correct answer (library, thus triggering this) but I think most players would naturally treat it as an in-between space and I don't think it's worth highlighting that it's not. (also why should that behave differently from, say, chord of calling?) this is also just really strong as a longevity tool for an aggro deck: you make, on average, a little more than one 2/2 per activation, and you probably hit your opponent for something like 2-ish free face damage on average as well. plus punishes them for any other card-revealing stuff they might be running, which given this must exist in a set where Parley returns, is potentially another non-trivial upside.
2/5

this has a similar problem to Dudibus's entry: Battalion has a specific meaning, and it's not this. it's similar, but an important part of Battalion's play pattern is that the source has to put itself in danger in order to get the trigger. not being a creature, and thus not attacking, is a different mechanic. I do like the card, as a modern take on overwhelming instinct, but I don't love it for the round.
3/5

cute. my instincts say overtuned, but my instincts are out of date so it's probably fine. combining two ability words is a nice approach and they compliment each other well given landfall's function as an alleviator to the randomness of topdeck mode. seems like a fun card for some sort of RDW build, and I like landfall in RDW 'cause it lets you go up a bit more without worrying as much about flooding. very practical card, in a good, solid-design-principles sort of way.
5/5

intriguing. could definitely see Adamant having a place in a hybrid set. in practice might just rename the mechanic entirely to avoid the connotation, but the round didn't allow for that and this works. my one note is that the card is very underpowered. that mana cost could get you divinity of pride over a decade ago, and this is no Divinity of Pride. even at subrare, 4/4 first strikes for 5 in white can come with additional upsides, like syr alin, the lion's claw, and same with 4/4 menace in black with cavern whisperer. quintuple hybrid places significant restrictions on your mana base, and the payoff here is underwhelming. I wonder if you could revamp the wording to just check for both colors, and then make it, like, a 3/3 for ?
4/5

kinda similar idea to Rush's approach, and I think also a clever one. interesting that you both went for hellbent. anyway, cute card. interesting removal-bait: a 3/2 menace is a fine body on its own, but as my hand is dwindling you start to have to worry if that last card is gonna wind up being a second copy 'cause 13 to the face is brutal. I'm curious why 13, since Hidetsugu is more associated with 10, but I think as long as it's a comically large number the design works.
4/5

the music theorist in me wants to complain about the misuse of the word "crescendo" but at this point it's probably the more common meaning so whatever. card's definitely interesting. seems a little strong, but honestly a 2-powered aggro 4-drop can be as strong as it wants to be and still probably be balanced in the grand scheme of things. I do like the window it creates where you need to dump your whole hand and then hope your opponent doesn't remove it before you get the trigger. would probably have to be rare for a couple reasons, not least of which is the devastation it wreaks on any sort of combat math, but that's alright. overall seems fun.
4/5

why N, not X? that formatting thing aside, I like the card. kinda underwhelming for 5, especially since even if you're careful with your discards now, you'll probably eventually hit threshold anyway, but it does cleverly encourage you to use it with things like Flashback that can exit your graveyard to keep your total count low. of course, you can always just run it with planar void but that doesn't seem worth it. still, I think this could cost 4 pretty easily.
3/5

very cute. runs up against the question of if that really counts as Fateful Hour if it's strictly negative: might've been more interesting if it had some upside attached. but I think for the purposes of this round that's something I'm gonna be reasonably lenient about, and it's definitely a cute card, kinda like a downpayment on an angel's grace. or not quite, since it doesn't keep you from dying when it expires, but you get the point. actually maybe that could've been the upside that makes it feel more Fateful-Hour-y: just set your life total to 5 before you sac it.
4/5

as loathe as I am to give a win to my Hall of Fame rival, I think my winner for this round is Rush! congrats, nominating now, new round up in a minute.

Something about combining ability words felt particularly odd, so practical is what the rest of the card aimed for.

I was about to nominate neru's card but then I realized you stop prematurely if you don't sacrifice a creature.

I contemplated having the card give you five life or not, I wasn't entirely sure if that was too much or not. I don't think I'd want it to set your life total, or at least if I do, it should exile itself.