MTG Salvation

Sephon19: A mana rock with an added ability when it is put into the graveyard from the battlefield? That's pretty neat. What does it do when it is put into the graveyard from the battlefield? . . . Everything? . . . Oh, everything-but-in-the-wrong-colors? Okay, I think I understand.

Though, more seriously, I like the idea that, when the color pie dies, you get color bleed. A very cool concept. The only issue is that, usually, color bleed is considered a flaw in a card. Also, rolling dice is not the best mechanic in the world. Also, giving a player an ability is not something that happens. I like the colorless ability, though. If that were on a card by itself, I would be intrigued. On this mountain of text, though, not so much.

Mergatroid Jones: I love the series of cards inspired by the idea of food artifacts. I'm only going to judge the Poisonberry Pie, but I am happy that the challenge conjured up some cool ideas. I think these would need to use the phrase "a Food artifact named [insert name here]" instead of just referring to them by name.

So, I like the idea that enemies attacking you steal a slice of the pie and eat it along the way, and the flavor-rooted mechanic that there are only so many slices to go around. The mechanic is a little bit underpowered, though. Unless this were a set where getting a -1/-1 counter on your creatures in limited spells easy death, in which case this could be a limited bomb, dissuading attackers very effectively. In constructed play, I think the mechanic would be a bit too underpowered at any cmc.

Stille Nacht: Zat flavair text kind of maks me theng you'ré makng a jok. Though, la card isn't altogethair seeh-lee. Ai suppose eet eez kind of strange zat you 'avé mak a bakd itém into a wéapon, but putténg zat flavair oddnez aside fair a momont, you 'ave a fair-lee simple, +1/+0 équipmont zat can also sairve as . . . Blue ramp? That's a bit of culair buhled. Zeré are mono-blue ramp spells. Look at Deranged Assistant air Vodalian Arcanist. Howévair, those ramp spélls are rare-lee unrestricted. Pairhaps ze restricshe-on haire eez zat you 'ave to sacrifice an artifact to gét eet to wairk? Steehl, eet eez a lit-téll bit thin.

TheRavenManIsSquee: Now this one is just straight up an Un-card. Almost exactly like Ashnod's Coupon. This doesn't specify the method the snack is obtained, nor what qualifies as a snack. Also, what is the playing area? If you play this is a game shop, is the whole shop the playing area? Why can't they get you a snack from inside the playing area? Though, most importantly:

Why does it get a bread counter that is then never used?

Subject16: Oh, single use Drop of Honey? Or perhaps I should say that it's a single use Porphyry Nodes. Either way, I like this design. It pulls from an existing card which references food, and is balanced by the lack of control you get over what is destroyed. In fact, I think the design might even be underpowered as it is, now. Thinking about how little use Porphyry Nodes actually gets, when it costs one mana. This could have gotten away with no mana cost at all in the activated ability.

TotallyHaywire: Ah, okay, instead of just going for an artifact card, you made a creature which generates artifact tokens. A clever way to approach the challenge. I like the (B/R) twist on a chef, too. A chef who takes any creature who dies and cooks them up into a pie. A pie which then can deal damage? I'm not sure about the flavor on that part? Is the target eating the pie and getting poisoned, maybe? That's the only thing that makes sense in my head. The other side, though, the ability that allows you to gain control of other creatures, I don't see how meat pies could cause that.

Mechanically, you have a Blood Seeker with a downside (costs (B/R) for each pie) and a big upside (doesn't have to be loss of life, as meat pies can be saved up for spot removal) and another upside (if you want to, you can save up five pies and gain two Act of Treason/removal effects, which is smaller because five creatures dying might be a bit difficult to achieve). You don't give a rarity, but I think this would make a good rare or a heavily pushed uncommon.

I think I'll have to give this one to TotallyHaywire. I was a fan of Mergatroid Jones's series of cards, but the official submission wasn't strong enough. Also, Subject16's card almost got me, but the similarity to existing cards kind of weighed it down a little bit. All in all, TotallyHaywire's design played around with some interesting ideas, even if all of the flavor in the card didn't gel with me too much.

Next Challenge: Legendary Auras

Atrophos, God of Dust
An interesting concept, but unfortunately the challenge was legendary auras, which this isn't.

Valakut Ablaze
Ramp in red with an eventual hard to counter kill on it is very powerful and definitely worth the legendsry supertype. The ramp static ability is somewhat hurt by the fact that it is not a mana ability since it targets, and thus can only be used at instant speed, but other than that, this is an interesting and cool concept.

The Last Tree
A cool effect for green, but I don't know if theres too many hoops to jump through, in that you have to draw your legendary ramp spell that requires a forest and one of your forests (which you have to limit drastically to play this card effectively), and that you ideally want to play early in the game for the ramp effect. The only deck archetype I can see effectively utilizing it is KotR, but I don't know if they want this effect necessarily.

Boon of Ormendhal
I don't get much demonic flavor out of this. The usual trope is power at a cost here, but there's no real evidence of that. In addition, this is extremely powerful for 3 mana. Evasion, advantage, and a pump that is difficult to remove as long as you have creatures is very pushed, probably too much so.

VonDool's Legacy
An aura so powerful it literally subverts the creature its applied too. I like the concept, but this is very pushed in that it essentially amounts to 1 mana, champion a creature, get a hasty 4/5 vigilance with strong typing. This would be white weenies strongest beater I feel, and one they're more than happy to go down a card for.

Let's give it to Subject16 for a very red card with the relatively most balanced effects out of the lot.

Next: Emergency Services on a card