Hi, I'm hosting a contest because I figured raz should be allowed to enter some as well. Don't expect me to be as consistent in hosting and grading them though, but I did choose a format that lets me easily generate new prompts, so the intent is there if nothing else.
Choose two prompts from which to submit one entry:
You'll be graded from B to E. You won't get A and shouldn't get F, but exceptions may be made for exceptional cards. You're not clever for choosing all five and I won't think higher of your entry for doing so. Ends next Wednesday.
Joined: Sep 22, 2013 Posts: 5419 Location: somewhere btwn Achilles and the tortoise
Preferred Pronoun Set: ♀
Sharuum's Apprentice — Creature — Sphinx (U) Flying Artifact cards you own in your hand have cycling . “Surely the master won't have much use for this.” 4/6
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Last edited by ParadOxymoron on Thu Oct 24, 2024 12:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
Eyedra Creature - Eye Hydra Cycling ~ enters with X +1/+1 counters. If ~ would be dealt damage, remove a +1/+1 counter from it instead. Whenever you cycle this or remove a +1/+1 counter from this, create a 1/1 green Eye creature token. [0/0]
Joined: Jun 04, 2014 Posts: 15599 Location: Freedom
Preferred Pronoun Set: they
Mown's just looking to give me an F for revenge.
Tinkersphinx- Creature-Sphinx Artificer Flying, Ward Whenever you cast an artifact spell from hand, you may exile it. When you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an artifact card with mana value equal to 3 plus the exiled spell’s mana value. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. His workshop is his riddle, and none have yet solved it. 4/4
Oops, they haven't entered mine yet because I forgot to add this disclaimer.
Hydra that promises a powerful effect for a significant investment:
Corpse-Head Hydra Creature - Hydra Horror (R) As an additional cost to cast Corpse-Head Hydra, exile three creature cards from your graveyard. : Put each card exiled with Corpse-Head Hydra onto the battlefield. 5/6
Legendary Creature - Demon Artificer Whenever you cast an artifact spell from your hand, exile it and put an hour counter on The Blind Clockmaker. Remove 13 hour counters from The Blind Clockmaker: Search your hand, library, and graveyard for any number of artifact cards and exile them, then shuffle. For the rest of the game, you may cast artifact cards you own from exile without paying their mana costs. 2/6
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"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."
I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook! The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure. Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.
Seraph of the Trial - Creature - Angel As an additional cost to cast ~, sacrifice three non-token permanents you control. Flying Permanent cards in your graveyard has "Escape - , Exile three other cards from your graveyard." Whenever you cast a spell from your graveyard, mill three cards and you gain 3 life. 3/3
Last edited by Confused on Fri Oct 25, 2024 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Thundercrack Sorcery (C) Thundercrack deals 3 damage to target creature. Crescendo ─ If you have cast at least two other spells with a combined mana value equal to the mana value of this spell this turn, tap each creature that creatures controller controls. They all heard it coming, but not all would bear witness.
Perfect originality is overrated and often ugly. The best and most beautiful cards I've ever seen were clearly inspired by something else. Cards are not entirely unlike living organisms in this regard. All the good ones are a result of long evolution; the 'original' ones are either mono-cellular or mutant aberrations.
Cato
A true warrior seeks out the greatest foe. Their heart cries out for glorious battle, heedless even to its own end.
Last edited by Dudibus on Fri Oct 25, 2024 9:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Junkhead Hydra Artifact Creature - Hydra (R) Junkhead Hydra enters with a +1/+1 counter for each artifact you control. Whenever damage is dealt to Junkhead Hydra, remove that many +1/+1 counters from it. When you do, create Scrap tokens equal to twice the counters removed this way. (They're artifacts with no abilities). Sacrifice X other artifacts: Put X +1/+1 counters on Junkhead Hydra. Activate only once per turn. 0/0
Wild Ravings Sorcery Create a 4/4 green Beast creature token with trample. If this spell's madness cost was paid, instead create an X/X red Dragon creature token with flying and haste. Madness Cycling
Creature - Dragon Bard Whenever you cast an artifact spell, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost. (You may cast that card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) He has hoarded a vast collection of trinkets and treasures, and an even greater collection of backstories and anecdotes. 3/2
Technically a Thursday. idk how raz does this, but I'll try to improve. Also I adjusted my grading scale to SABCDF, mostly because giving half the submission D's seemed like bad vibes, which is hopefully a bit more congruent with expectations even though I personally like it less. Either way, here is what they mean:
S: Exceptional. I will nominate this for cotw, and get upset if it doesn't win that week. A: Good. I like this card, and don't see much room for improvement, but it lacks the something extra. B: Acceptable. Either a bit uninspired, or a cool idea that didn't quite hit the landing, but could see print. C: Questionable. Is flawed in some way, but not egregiously so. D: Lacking. I don't really fancy what's going on with this design. F: Dysfunctional. Please don't end up here.
For your information, the average grade this round ended up at a C+.
Sharuum's Apprentice — Creature — Sphinx (U) Flying Artifact cards you own in your hand have cycling . “Surely the master won't have much use for this.” 4/6
Conceptually I feel like this is mostly just an air elemental with melvin flavor text, 2 mana to cycle a card isn't appealing enough to make you invested to have it in play barring some unorthodox set design. It's also odd to me that it's not an artifact creature. I personally find the card design appealing, but it feels like a relic of a bygone era (that I personally wish never left.)
Eyedra Creature - Eye Hydra Cycling ~ enters with X +1/+1 counters. If ~ would be dealt damage, remove a +1/+1 counter from it instead. Whenever you cycle this or remove a +1/+1 counter from this, create a 1/1 green Eye creature token. [0/0]
The name is greatly upsetting, first of all, and the phantom clause should check if it still has counters left. I like the narrative concept of this creature. I'm not sure about the mechanics of it. Cycling seems misplaced on a creature that scales with your mana, there aren't that many game states where it's desirable.
Tinkersphinx- Creature-Sphinx Artificer Flying, Ward Whenever you cast an artifact spell from hand, you may exile it. When you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an artifact card with mana value equal to 3 plus the exiled spell’s mana value. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. His workshop is his riddle, and none have yet solved it. 4/4
It seems kind of scary to turn all your ornithopters into 3-drops, not to speak of anything that can cheat mana values, and the ward makes it even more difficult to stop your opponent from going off. I'd expect a card like this to at least have a once-per-turn limit, but being able to target what your want to begin with unlike with cascade is kind of surprising in itself.
Corpse-Head Hydra Creature - Hydra Horror (R) As an additional cost to cast Corpse-Head Hydra, exile three creature cards from your graveyard. : Put each card exiled with Corpse-Head Hydra onto the battlefield. 5/6
You can't get to my heart with skaab ruinator references. I don't know, I kind of like it, it has some nice gameplay tension, but I would like some spoopy flavor text. Wonder if it should maybe sacrifice itself, mostly for thematic reasons.
Legendary Creature - Demon Artificer Whenever you cast an artifact spell from your hand, exile it and put an hour counter on The Blind Clockmaker. Remove 13 hour counters from The Blind Clockmaker: Search your hand, library, and graveyard for any number of artifact cards and exile them, then shuffle. For the rest of the game, you may cast artifact cards you own from exile without paying their mana costs. 2/6
That certainly is a very impressive effect at an extraordinarily difficult cost. It seems more realistic that you would get this off by proliferating rather than throwing thirteen artifacts into the void. I don't know, the card just seems way too extreme to me in a way that doesn't seem conducive to good games, and you almost have to set up a combo for it to combo off in the first place. Maybe if it at least gave you some marginal benefit from all the artifacts you exile to help you along the way. I like the vibes though.
Seraph of the Trial - Creature - Angel As an additional cost to cast ~, sacrifice three non-token permanents you control. Flying Permanent cards in your graveyard has "Escape - , Exile three other cards from your graveyard." Whenever you cast a spell from your graveyard, mill three cards and you gain 3 life. 3/3
I don't entirely understand why this card refunds all your escape costs, if it wasn't also the enabler then it would maybe be a cool buildaround, but here you just offer a cost and then circumvent it in the next sentence. There's a lot going on here, and there are some parts of it I like, but largely I think there's a bit too much. I don't really know what to make of the additional cost, I think it makes the card too unwieldy to cast fairly, but you also get a disproportionately powerful 3 drop if you Unearth it.
You can't cast artifact spells. Artifact cards in your hand have "Cycling ."
2/1
I like the narrative resonance in the mechanics here, although I'm not entirely sure why you're not allowed to cast artifacts. Likewise with my comments on Parad's card, giving all my artifacts an expensive cycling cost isn't really that appealing, but it does at least seem more reasonable of an effect on a cheaper card. But this card could easily cost only one red and not had a drawback and I would still question its use case.
Thundercrack Sorcery (C) Thundercrack deals 3 damage to target creature. Crescendo ─ If you have cast at least two other spells with a combined mana value equal to the mana value of this spell this turn, tap each creature that creatures controller controls. They all heard it coming, but not all would bear witness.
Crescendo does not seem like a mechanic with much design space. I question if it even has any. You have to cast exactly a 1 and 2 mana spell (or 3 and 0) for it to trigger for a total of 6 mana on your turn. A 2 mana crescendo card is very limited in how you can enable it, a 4 mana one requires you to spend 8 mana in total, and any other spell cost is out of the question. It's also kind of disappointing that your opponent can fizzle the entire effect even if you set it up. Also the card is just positively horrendous if you don't, although it's nice that it has some flexibility if you're behind.
Junkhead Hydra Artifact Creature - Hydra (R) Junkhead Hydra enters with a +1/+1 counter for each artifact you control. Whenever damage is dealt to Junkhead Hydra, remove that many +1/+1 counters from it. When you do, create Scrap tokens equal to twice the counters removed this way. (They're artifacts with no abilities). Sacrifice X other artifacts: Put X +1/+1 counters on Junkhead Hydra. Activate only once per turn. 0/0
This seems very close to a solid design. I think the etb effect is a bit questionable on a six drop, I think it could stand to be a bit more self sufficient. I think it also counts itself, which is a bit unintuitive from a rules standpoint and could be clarified. Junk tokens work well thematically, but I also wonder if it would play better if the tokens actually did something.
Wild Ravings Sorcery Create a 4/4 green Beast creature token with trample. If this spell's madness cost was paid, instead create an X/X red Dragon creature token with flying and haste. Madness Cycling
I think it's kind of strange that this card practically just works like a split card, one of the sides being triple red. I feel like it kind of detracts from both of the keywords by how well they work in conjunction, how cheap the cycling cost is, and that they are the same color. The madness cost is practically just a cycling trigger, you're not encouraged to find other ways to discard it. The name is also kind of tenuous, and I don't think dragons are a good fit for an X/X token.
Creature - Dragon Bard Whenever you cast an artifact spell, target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost. (You may cast that card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) He has hoarded a vast collection of trinkets and treasures, and an even greater collection of backstories and anecdotes. 3/2
I was thinking more capital D dragon and less dragonkin, but I can't hold that against you. I don't have much to complain about here, it seems like an eminently printable card, if perhaps a bit basic. Seems like the type of card that would be legendary.
B
I think I'll give the victory to Shazzeh, who was the closest to getting an A.
Joined: Jun 04, 2014 Posts: 15599 Location: Freedom
Preferred Pronoun Set: they
I figured as a 5-drop it was allowed to enable some fun and potentially scary combos, but yeah, I think a once-per-turn limit probably wouldn't have gone amiss. still, in order to have that nightmare value play of dropping this and immediately throwing a bunch of ornithopters to fill your board with 3-drop artifacts, you first have to spend four turns holding a grip full of ornithopters doing nothing, so I think the dilution effect on deckbuilding probably balances out the impact somewhat.
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