Welcome to the Card Creation League! This round is for the top 4 only! Feel free to watch and comment in the CCL discussion thread!
Out Top 4:
kjsharp
willows
Flatline
Hemlock
Theme
It's a brand new year, so everything this month will require you to do something new! Start those resolutions and get ready, because you'll have to wind your gears around for that fresh take on card design!
PLEASE NOTE: This month will continue the use of the "Mandatory Top 3 Rule." For this month, you must submit a Top 3 during a round's critique period in order to receive any points for the round. Submitting critiques as well will be worth 2 bonus points in the round.
Your submissions are due Thursday, January 25th, 23:59 EST.
Schedule
Round 1 — Open to Everyone (December 31th-January 5th)
Round 2 — Open to Everyone (January 6th–11th)
Rounds 1 and 2 Critiques (Due January 14th)
Top 8 — Open to top 8 finishers (January 15th–18th)
Top 8 Critiques (Due January 21th)
Top 4 — Open to top 4 finishers from last round (January 22st–25th)
Top 4 Critiques (Due January 27th)
Final (End of month, winner determined by public poll)
Event is a supertype found on instants and sorceries. Any spell with the event supertype is bound by the the following rules:
- A deck can have no more than one event card with the same name in it.
- Upon resolution, an event spell is put into exile instead of its owner's library.
The Reckoning1WW
Event Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures. The citizens of Gungari knew a time would come when they would pay for their sins.
(22 Total) - October 2014; December 2014; January 2015; April 2015; June 2015; August 2015; September 2015; November 2015; December 2015(T); January 2016; March 2016(T); April 2016; June 2016; October 2016; December 2016(T); February 2017; April 2017; December 2017; November 2018(T); January 2019; April 2019; June 2019
(8 Total) - May 2015; May 2016; June 2016; August 2016; October 2016; December 2016; October 2017; May 2019
(7 Total) - September 2015; October 2015; January 2016; March 2016; April 2016; July 2016(T); March 2019(T)
What is Mercenary? Mercenary is a multiplayer variant of Magic the Gathering in which each player is able to partner with the underhanded and aloof Mercenaries. This turns a normal Commander or casual multiplayer game into a 2-headed giant variant in which the mercenaries function as each player's teammate. During each player's turn, that player will have the opportunity to cast a spell from the Mercenary deck. If the Mercenary variant is being used in a Commander game, the Mercenary deck will contain 150 cards. If used in a normal game, the Mercenary deck will contain 100 cards.
How does Mercenary work? The mercenary deck can be placed in the middle of the game space or wherever is convenient. At the start of the game, the mercenary deck draws 7 cards, face down. On the back of mercenary cards is a casting cost (usually a mana cost, but sometimes other costs are required. The mercenaries of the Black Forest are a demanding bunch!). At the beginning of the first main phase of each player's turn, that player will have the choice of casting one of the face down cards by paying its cost before looking at the front side of the card. If that player does, he or she casts the spell and draws a card from the Mercenary deck face down and puts it into the Mercenary hand. Thus there should always be 7 cards in the mercenary's hand at the start of each player's turn.
Why is there a Mercenary supertype? Mercenary cards all use the supertype "Hired". Mercenary cards often refer to each other, sometimes encouraging the active player to cast a Mercenary spell on future turns and sometimes making opponents think twice before seeking the Mercenaries' aid. There are Mercenary lands, artifacts, enchantments, sorceries, creatures, and word on the street has it that there is a mighty Mercenary planeswalker who lives deep in the forest. There are no additional rules that need to be learned to accompany this supertype. The only difference between a Mercenary card and a normal Magic card is that the casting cost of the Mercenary card is on the back instead of the front (thus Mercenary lands are "cast"). I've provided rarities, but I think I want power level to be relatively stable across the Mercenary deck cards.
I've provided 3 example cards, the first being one that doesn't interact with other mercenary cards and the other two being examples of cards that do. I don't really care which you consider the official submission (if forced to choose I'd choose #2). I felt that since this supertype was attached to a new product it needed a few examples so you could get the gist of it.
Example card #1: 3W
////// Monastic Training
• Hired Enchantment (U)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may exile a creature you control with no +1/+1 counters on it. If you do, return it to the battlefield at the beginning of your next turn and put two +1/+1 counters on it. The families who send their adolescents to Tolokoi Monastery are greeted by a changed person upon their return. Sullen, subdued, disciplined,...and deadly.
Example card #2: 1GG
////// Woodland Cultist
• Hired Creature - Human Druid (R)
Whenever another hired creature enters the battlefield, create a 2/2 green Wolf creature token.
Woodland Cultist has hexproof as long as you control five or more wolves. Her wolves protect her from those she begrudgingly calls "brothers".
2/3
Example card #3: 2
////// Mercenary Outpost
Hired Land (R)
Mercenary Outpost enters the battlefield tapped.
: add 1 to your mana pool.
: add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast hired spells.
A player may cast a signature card they own from the command zone. A signature card cast from the command zone costs an additional 2 for each previous time the player casting it has cast a signature card from the command zone that game.
If a signature card would be exiled from anywhere or put into its owner’s hand, graveyard, or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event. This is an exception to rule 614.5.
(In effect, a player can have up to three "command tax" counters: Commander tax, partner commander tax, signature tax.)
(Also note that unlike commanders, signature cards have to be drawn from the library or initial hand.)
Heat of the Stoneforge1R
Signature Sorcery (R)
Heat of the Stoneforge deals 1 damage to target creature or player. If you control an Equipment or Nahiri, you may have Heat of the Stoneforge deal damage equal to that permanent's converted mana cost instead.
Alright, this is a tough challenge, as designing a new supertype is bound to be one of the major focus points of a whole set or block.
* There are three aligments: Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful.
* Alignment is a characteristic players and cards have. The alignment of a card is determined by its supertype: Chaotic or Lawful. Cards with unexpressed alignment are neutral.
* Players start the game with neutral alignment. Alignment is tracked with an aligment counter on an alignment card with three squares: Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful. The counter will be moved as instructed.
*The alignment card and counter are not considered to be part of the game and cannot be affected as usual cards and counters in any way.
Rules
* A card with aligment costs more to cast for each alignment square its caster's alignment is from the card's alignment. Lands can have alignment, but as they are not cast, this penality has no effect on playing them. For instance:
Tract of Chaos
Chaotic Sorcery (R)
Add to your mana pool.
Would cost 2B to cast if you have Lawful alignment and 1B if your alignment is neutral. But:
Clearing of Yriur
Lawful Land - Plains
Clearing of Yriur enters the battlefield tapped.
Would be played as any other land regardless player alignment, as lands are never cast.
* Once played, a card with alignment will move the alignment counter one square towards its alignment. Tract of Chaos would move a the alignment of a Lawful player to neutral, and the alignment of a neutral player towards chaotic. Neutral spells will always result in acquiring neutral alignment.
Design notes
* Cards with aligment will tend to be more powerful than unaligned cards.
* As expected, black will be the Chaotic color and white the Lawful one. Others color will show minor support to alignment system. Green will have some support to neutral aligment.
* Cards that change an opponent aligment will be exceptional.
* The alignment system demands specific archetypes to be fully supported. A
Code of HonorWW
Lawful Enchantment (r)
White creatures you control get +1/+1.
Lawful creatures you control get +1/+1 as long as your alignment is lawful.
Flatline—"Event": I'm pretty unfond of attempts to create "Non-permanent legendary" for basically the same reasons that I'm against the use of the legendary supertype itself (marking stuff that's supposed to be cool with a downside mechanic is bizarre and backwards), and this digs its hole deeper by introducing a deck construction rule that will force the deck verification process to know additional characteristics of cards besides their English name, which is concerning on a logistical level. It seems like you want to use this mechanic to build swingy, undercosted effects, which is imo not the best application.
kjsharp—"Hired": This isn't for me, I think (because I really don't like in-play deckbuilders), but it's innovative and intriguing. I'd like to sit down and play a few games of your new format! I think there are some rough edges in your implementation that could be filed down (like, I don't see any reason you shouldn't make the rule for hiring things, "Any time you could cast a sorcery, you may cast a spell from the mercenary hand"), but in this case I don't see that as a fatal flaw. I'd really like to see you move this into the main forum and develop it further.
Hemlock—"Alignment": To me this just feels like an unnecessary deckbuilding restriction; under normal conditions I'd likely just choose lawful or chaotic and not include cards of opposite alignment. The mana system already provides us reasons to be cautious about mixing factions, so I feel like this is mostly adding handling time to a functionality that's already been captured. Alignment griefing's going to be a problem in this environment too, worth a few mana of slowdown for your opponent.
1) Flatline: I think there is something here, as "event" has the same sort of vibe and feel as miracles. Perhaps the best thing to do is to use some alternate casting source like energy that you can build up to use to cast an "event" spell. I think that could be a fun multiplayer mechanic to create a novel gaming experience. Oh, you could also do something like the Planar die - have an event deck, and then at the start of each turn that player rolls the event die, and if he rolls a 6 he casts the top card of the event deck. I'd be loathe to put this into Constructed though - too swingy.
2) Willows: I'd need to play Commander more to get a better feel for it. I like it - it looks fun, it feels immersive, but here are two concerns I have. First is balance. I do not play Commander so I'm unsure about whether this card is balanced (the card basically "draws 4 kill spells" over the course of the game). More broadly though, is it possible to balance this sort of card? Commanders aren't designed with these sorts of cards in mind, meaning that Nahiri was designed without a "partner sorcery" in mind. Partner cards, be they the partners from the recent commander products or IcariiFA's design from last month's CCL final, *are* designed and balanced with their partners in mind.
My second concern is that some commanders would get special treatment and others wouldn't. Let's say 30 of these were printed, and they were roughly the same power level as your mock card. Would those 30 commanders become too good? These are only concerns and honest feedback - I would want to play with Signature Spell cards and see more designs before arriving at conclusive judgments. If they give you an idea to improve the mechanic, all the better!
Overall, my hunch is that this design should either (i) be reserved for a few individual commmanders and balanced together with them or (ii)that these cards should be de-powered slightly. Like Icarii's design from last month, it's innovative and I genuinely hope that something like it gets printed. It's not easy coming up with a supertype on the fly, and I definitely think it's okay to come up with a supertype that might only be found on a few cards. I also like the way you spelled out the rules for it and made sure that it would work as it should for Commander.
3) Hemlock: Quickly before getting into feedback on the mechanic itself - I think the bottom ability should read: "If your alignment is lawful, creatures you control get +1/+1." Otherwise the mechanic becomes way too parasitic.
A very ambitious entry, as you've designed a supertype that I could envision using in Constructed. I quite like it as well. It's reminiscent of mechanics that allow you to do busted things (or, in this ritual's case, things we no longer have access to) at the cost of restricting deck building to one particular block; it reminds me of Arcane and Energy in that way (both are parasitic mechanics). I don't know whether I want to see it printed, but I think it is very very creative. My gut tells me that a tweaked version would be fun in Limited and less healthy for Constructed - if testing bore that gut feeling out, the cards would need to be designed with that in mind.
There is something else that is interesting about the mechanic - it's always difficult to get the chaos or law engine going, but once you do you're golden (although you then don't want to cast non-chaos or non-lawful spells because those reset the storm-esque progress you've made). This is something I'd be curious to test out and try and see whether the idea could be refined further. I think you're going to have to do something about "neutral", as 99% of Magic spells resetting the lawful/chaotic alignment is likely a problem that needs fixing.
I wanted to give this entry first place because it took the most creativity, but it's clearly still in the exploratory stage and I'm having trouble quickly coming up with ways to improve it. I think there's something to work with here and I encourage you to explore it further. My suspicion is formatting it like Ascend/The City's Blessing will be the golden ticket!
I like all 3 designs and all 3 have merit and can be refined and developed further.
1)Willows
2)Hemlock
3)Flatline
I didn't notice this at first, because I've been distracted with a lot of other things magic and not magic related, but I'm afraid there has been a violation of the rules of the contest.
kjsharp, the challenge asked for a single card and you submitted three. This has given you an unfair advantage on top of not following the rule of the challenge. I realize you did not mean any ill intent, but I also think it's wrong for me not to say something as organizer.
In the MCC I feel this would be simple, as this we be a disqualification. However, in the CCL it's usually left to your peers to judge your entry as invalid. Therefore, I will leave it up to your peers and how they vote. Regardless I felt it was important to point out that this was not what I asked for as organizer.
All 3 are merely examples to help understand how the game "Mercenary" would work. Hemlock did the same, and that was helpful for understanding how the mechanic operates. I clearly state that if you choose one to judge, choose #2. I don't think anyone is really judging cards here - we're judging supertypes. If you read the feedback Willows and I provided, it was entirely focused on the mechanics, and I suspect the other feedback will be in the same mold.
As far as I'm concerned, you both violated the challenge at least in part, but hemlock presented his card entry separately and that was clear. Saying "I don't really care which you consider the official submission (if forced to choose I'd choose #2)" is the equivalent of saying "Please consider all my card entries and pick one but if I had to choose I'd choose two." That's not clear. That's trying to take advantage of giving people options when I asked for one card.
If people choose to judge based solely on the supertype and not the card entry, that is their choice, but it is not a given.
I said it that way because that's exactly how I felt - all 3 are examples that were showing how the supertype and associated game operate. If the other contestants feel that that is unfair, then so be it, but I don't think they will. This seems to be much ado about nothing.
Sorry, I've been travelling for the whole month and keeping up wirh the schedule got a bit difficult. I have to leave in a bit, so I'll be judging later today if that's fine.
On kjsharp's case, I really don't think there's been any intention of getting an advantage. I, like him, thought that introducing a new supertype demands the support of some extra design: For instance, in willows entry, with just one card, I'm not really sure if the Signature supertype is meant to appear tied to specific commanders or not. Am extra card referencing another commander or anothet card referencing none would have solved that in a glance.
willows - I rather like the idea of signature spell for EDH, but I don't think I'm a fan of it for other formats. The card posted seems a bit unexciting, but a recastable instant or sorcery would probably need to be a toned down a bit for power reasons. Good work.
kjsharp - This seems like a fun subgame. In the future, please try to keep your entry to a single card when the challenge calls for a single card. Please see the discussion thread for further explanation of why I feel posting multiple cards for a challenge that calls for a single card is a bit unfair.
Hemlock - I like the idea of an alignment system, but I think your execution is too complicated for what it it brings to the game. In the future, please try to keep your entry to a single card when the challenge calls for a single card. Please see the discussion thread for further explanation of why I feel posting multiple cards for a challenge that calls for a single card is a bit unfair.
1st: willows
2nd: kjsharp
3rd: Hemlock
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
(22 Total) - October 2014; December 2014; January 2015; April 2015; June 2015; August 2015; September 2015; November 2015; December 2015(T); January 2016; March 2016(T); April 2016; June 2016; October 2016; December 2016(T); February 2017; April 2017; December 2017; November 2018(T); January 2019; April 2019; June 2019
(8 Total) - May 2015; May 2016; June 2016; August 2016; October 2016; December 2016; October 2017; May 2019
(7 Total) - September 2015; October 2015; January 2016; March 2016; April 2016; July 2016(T); March 2019(T)
Willows: As I said earlier, I cannot figure if signature cards will be designed for specific commanders or not. The card itself presents some balabce issues. A Nahiri in play 4/5 repeatable damage becomes quite a lot and its almost a win if you have somethung like Elbrus, the Binding Blade in play. The idea is interesting and there's a bit of a Vanguard taste to it, but I feel the room for design hete is a bit narrow in the sense that it's a bit hard to krep safe outside specific commander paitings.
Flatline: We all at some point have been juggling with the idea of a "Legendary" instant ir sorcery, and in this regard the submission is a bit on the safe side. That said. as a commander player, I don't like this (Althought my inner-limited player feels cracking one of these would be a bit unfair, yet still awesome): Designing them should be done very commander-aware-ly as their drawback has little impact (Not being easily reused still adds a bit of balance) and the effects for this to be worth it habe to be quite dramtic and I don't think a Day of Judgement for one mana less is qoth the fuss. I do feel escalable effects ala citie's blessing or Hour of revelation are the way to go in this regard.
Kjsharp: Again, design here has to be done carefulle but as a standalone minigame you open yoirself quite a safe haven for designing. I'm personally very fond of magic products like duel decks that you can grab and just play. I think the mercenary deck should be used whole to be an attractive product. There's a lot of development to go yet: printing costs in the back should result in using a specific set of costs to allow confuaion or a wide one to prevent it. Those are choices to be made yet that are not being seen clearly enough yet I think.
The druid is powerful, as it triggers on your opponent, but the hexproof clause is a bit odd.
I have to say that I really enjoyed this months CCL. I drove for 4000 kms last weeks and it got me somthing to think when the stretches became too long, and that's on IcariFaa's rather tough challenges and great designs to judge from the fellas! Thanks!
January CCL 2018 Top 4 - Super, SUPER New!
Welcome to the Card Creation League! This round is for the top 4 only! Feel free to watch and comment in the CCL discussion thread!
Out Top 4:
kjsharp
willows
Flatline
Hemlock
Theme
It's a brand new year, so everything this month will require you to do something new! Start those resolutions and get ready, because you'll have to wind your gears around for that fresh take on card design!
Challenge
PLEASE NOTE: This month will continue the use of the "Mandatory Top 3 Rule." For this month, you must submit a Top 3 during a round's critique period in order to receive any points for the round. Submitting critiques as well will be worth 2 bonus points in the round.
Schedule
- A deck can have no more than one event card with the same name in it.
- Upon resolution, an event spell is put into exile instead of its owner's library.
Event Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures.
The citizens of Gungari knew a time would come when they would pay for their sins.
What is Mercenary? Mercenary is a multiplayer variant of Magic the Gathering in which each player is able to partner with the underhanded and aloof Mercenaries. This turns a normal Commander or casual multiplayer game into a 2-headed giant variant in which the mercenaries function as each player's teammate. During each player's turn, that player will have the opportunity to cast a spell from the Mercenary deck. If the Mercenary variant is being used in a Commander game, the Mercenary deck will contain 150 cards. If used in a normal game, the Mercenary deck will contain 100 cards.
How does Mercenary work? The mercenary deck can be placed in the middle of the game space or wherever is convenient. At the start of the game, the mercenary deck draws 7 cards, face down. On the back of mercenary cards is a casting cost (usually a mana cost, but sometimes other costs are required. The mercenaries of the Black Forest are a demanding bunch!). At the beginning of the first main phase of each player's turn, that player will have the choice of casting one of the face down cards by paying its cost before looking at the front side of the card. If that player does, he or she casts the spell and draws a card from the Mercenary deck face down and puts it into the Mercenary hand. Thus there should always be 7 cards in the mercenary's hand at the start of each player's turn.
Why is there a Mercenary supertype? Mercenary cards all use the supertype "Hired". Mercenary cards often refer to each other, sometimes encouraging the active player to cast a Mercenary spell on future turns and sometimes making opponents think twice before seeking the Mercenaries' aid. There are Mercenary lands, artifacts, enchantments, sorceries, creatures, and word on the street has it that there is a mighty Mercenary planeswalker who lives deep in the forest. There are no additional rules that need to be learned to accompany this supertype. The only difference between a Mercenary card and a normal Magic card is that the casting cost of the Mercenary card is on the back instead of the front (thus Mercenary lands are "cast"). I've provided rarities, but I think I want power level to be relatively stable across the Mercenary deck cards.
I've provided 3 example cards, the first being one that doesn't interact with other mercenary cards and the other two being examples of cards that do. I don't really care which you consider the official submission (if forced to choose I'd choose #2). I felt that since this supertype was attached to a new product it needed a few examples so you could get the gist of it.
Example card #1:
3W
//////
Monastic Training
• Hired Enchantment (U)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may exile a creature you control with no +1/+1 counters on it. If you do, return it to the battlefield at the beginning of your next turn and put two +1/+1 counters on it.
The families who send their adolescents to Tolokoi Monastery are greeted by a changed person upon their return. Sullen, subdued, disciplined,...and deadly.
Example card #2:
1GG
//////
Woodland Cultist
• Hired Creature - Human Druid (R)
Whenever another hired creature enters the battlefield, create a 2/2 green Wolf creature token.
Woodland Cultist has hexproof as long as you control five or more wolves.
Her wolves protect her from those she begrudgingly calls "brothers".
2/3
Example card #3:
2
//////
Mercenary Outpost
Hired Land (R)
Mercenary Outpost enters the battlefield tapped.
: add 1 to your mana pool.
: add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast hired spells.
Signature Sorcery (R)
Heat of the Stoneforge deals 1 damage to target creature or player. If you control an Equipment or Nahiri, you may have Heat of the Stoneforge deal damage equal to that permanent's converted mana cost instead.
* There are three aligments: Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful.
* Alignment is a characteristic players and cards have. The alignment of a card is determined by its supertype: Chaotic or Lawful. Cards with unexpressed alignment are neutral.
* Players start the game with neutral alignment. Alignment is tracked with an aligment counter on an alignment card with three squares: Chaotic, Neutral and Lawful. The counter will be moved as instructed.
*The alignment card and counter are not considered to be part of the game and cannot be affected as usual cards and counters in any way.
Rules
* A card with aligment costs more to cast for each alignment square its caster's alignment is from the card's alignment. Lands can have alignment, but as they are not cast, this penality has no effect on playing them. For instance:
Tract of Chaos
Chaotic Sorcery (R)
Add to your mana pool.
Would cost 2B to cast if you have Lawful alignment and 1B if your alignment is neutral. But:
Clearing of Yriur
Lawful Land - Plains
Clearing of Yriur enters the battlefield tapped.
Would be played as any other land regardless player alignment, as lands are never cast.
* Once played, a card with alignment will move the alignment counter one square towards its alignment. Tract of Chaos would move a the alignment of a Lawful player to neutral, and the alignment of a neutral player towards chaotic. Neutral spells will always result in acquiring neutral alignment.
Design notes
* Cards with aligment will tend to be more powerful than unaligned cards.
* As expected, black will be the Chaotic color and white the Lawful one. Others color will show minor support to alignment system. Green will have some support to neutral aligment.
* Cards that change an opponent aligment will be exceptional.
* The alignment system demands specific archetypes to be fully supported. A
Code of Honor WW
Lawful Enchantment (r)
White creatures you control get +1/+1.
Lawful creatures you control get +1/+1 as long as your alignment is lawful.
kjsharp—"Hired": This isn't for me, I think (because I really don't like in-play deckbuilders), but it's innovative and intriguing. I'd like to sit down and play a few games of your new format! I think there are some rough edges in your implementation that could be filed down (like, I don't see any reason you shouldn't make the rule for hiring things, "Any time you could cast a sorcery, you may cast a spell from the mercenary hand"), but in this case I don't see that as a fatal flaw. I'd really like to see you move this into the main forum and develop it further.
Hemlock—"Alignment": To me this just feels like an unnecessary deckbuilding restriction; under normal conditions I'd likely just choose lawful or chaotic and not include cards of opposite alignment. The mana system already provides us reasons to be cautious about mixing factions, so I feel like this is mostly adding handling time to a functionality that's already been captured. Alignment griefing's going to be a problem in this environment too, worth a few mana of slowdown for your opponent.
2. Flatline
3. Hemlock
2) Willows: I'd need to play Commander more to get a better feel for it. I like it - it looks fun, it feels immersive, but here are two concerns I have. First is balance. I do not play Commander so I'm unsure about whether this card is balanced (the card basically "draws 4 kill spells" over the course of the game). More broadly though, is it possible to balance this sort of card? Commanders aren't designed with these sorts of cards in mind, meaning that Nahiri was designed without a "partner sorcery" in mind. Partner cards, be they the partners from the recent commander products or IcariiFA's design from last month's CCL final, *are* designed and balanced with their partners in mind.
My second concern is that some commanders would get special treatment and others wouldn't. Let's say 30 of these were printed, and they were roughly the same power level as your mock card. Would those 30 commanders become too good? These are only concerns and honest feedback - I would want to play with Signature Spell cards and see more designs before arriving at conclusive judgments. If they give you an idea to improve the mechanic, all the better!
Overall, my hunch is that this design should either (i) be reserved for a few individual commmanders and balanced together with them or (ii)that these cards should be de-powered slightly. Like Icarii's design from last month, it's innovative and I genuinely hope that something like it gets printed. It's not easy coming up with a supertype on the fly, and I definitely think it's okay to come up with a supertype that might only be found on a few cards. I also like the way you spelled out the rules for it and made sure that it would work as it should for Commander.
3) Hemlock: Quickly before getting into feedback on the mechanic itself - I think the bottom ability should read: "If your alignment is lawful, creatures you control get +1/+1." Otherwise the mechanic becomes way too parasitic.
A very ambitious entry, as you've designed a supertype that I could envision using in Constructed. I quite like it as well. It's reminiscent of mechanics that allow you to do busted things (or, in this ritual's case, things we no longer have access to) at the cost of restricting deck building to one particular block; it reminds me of Arcane and Energy in that way (both are parasitic mechanics). I don't know whether I want to see it printed, but I think it is very very creative. My gut tells me that a tweaked version would be fun in Limited and less healthy for Constructed - if testing bore that gut feeling out, the cards would need to be designed with that in mind.
There is something else that is interesting about the mechanic - it's always difficult to get the chaos or law engine going, but once you do you're golden (although you then don't want to cast non-chaos or non-lawful spells because those reset the storm-esque progress you've made). This is something I'd be curious to test out and try and see whether the idea could be refined further. I think you're going to have to do something about "neutral", as 99% of Magic spells resetting the lawful/chaotic alignment is likely a problem that needs fixing.
I wanted to give this entry first place because it took the most creativity, but it's clearly still in the exploratory stage and I'm having trouble quickly coming up with ways to improve it. I think there's something to work with here and I encourage you to explore it further. My suspicion is formatting it like Ascend/The City's Blessing will be the golden ticket!
1)Willows
2)Hemlock
3)Flatline
kjsharp, the challenge asked for a single card and you submitted three. This has given you an unfair advantage on top of not following the rule of the challenge. I realize you did not mean any ill intent, but I also think it's wrong for me not to say something as organizer.
In the MCC I feel this would be simple, as this we be a disqualification. However, in the CCL it's usually left to your peers to judge your entry as invalid. Therefore, I will leave it up to your peers and how they vote. Regardless I felt it was important to point out that this was not what I asked for as organizer.
If people choose to judge based solely on the supertype and not the card entry, that is their choice, but it is not a given.
Bottom line, you step across the line.
On kjsharp's case, I really don't think there's been any intention of getting an advantage. I, like him, thought that introducing a new supertype demands the support of some extra design: For instance, in willows entry, with just one card, I'm not really sure if the Signature supertype is meant to appear tied to specific commanders or not. Am extra card referencing another commander or anothet card referencing none would have solved that in a glance.
kjsharp - This seems like a fun subgame. In the future, please try to keep your entry to a single card when the challenge calls for a single card. Please see the discussion thread for further explanation of why I feel posting multiple cards for a challenge that calls for a single card is a bit unfair.
Hemlock - I like the idea of an alignment system, but I think your execution is too complicated for what it it brings to the game. In the future, please try to keep your entry to a single card when the challenge calls for a single card. Please see the discussion thread for further explanation of why I feel posting multiple cards for a challenge that calls for a single card is a bit unfair.
2nd: kjsharp
3rd: Hemlock
Flatline: We all at some point have been juggling with the idea of a "Legendary" instant ir sorcery, and in this regard the submission is a bit on the safe side. That said. as a commander player, I don't like this (Althought my inner-limited player feels cracking one of these would be a bit unfair, yet still awesome): Designing them should be done very commander-aware-ly as their drawback has little impact (Not being easily reused still adds a bit of balance) and the effects for this to be worth it habe to be quite dramtic and I don't think a Day of Judgement for one mana less is qoth the fuss. I do feel escalable effects ala citie's blessing or Hour of revelation are the way to go in this regard.
Kjsharp: Again, design here has to be done carefulle but as a standalone minigame you open yoirself quite a safe haven for designing. I'm personally very fond of magic products like duel decks that you can grab and just play. I think the mercenary deck should be used whole to be an attractive product. There's a lot of development to go yet: printing costs in the back should result in using a specific set of costs to allow confuaion or a wide one to prevent it. Those are choices to be made yet that are not being seen clearly enough yet I think.
The druid is powerful, as it triggers on your opponent, but the hexproof clause is a bit odd.
1. Kjsharp
2. Flatline
3. Willows