Kobold Totem 0
Artifact
Whenever you cast a creature spell with converted mana cost 0, Kobold Totem becomes a 0/1 red Kobold creature until end of turn. 2R: Each creature you control gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is 2 minus its converted mana cost. Activate this ability only if Kobold Totem is a creature. (If X is negative, treat it as 0)
Iiw: low mana permanents that are late game all stars
Riotbreaker Squad 4WW
Creature- Loxodon Soldier {R}
When Riotbreaker Squad enters the battlefield, if it was cast, create 2 tokens that are copies of it. 1W,T: Riotbreaker Squad deals 2 damage to target attacking creature. If that creature would die this turn, instead put it on top of its owner's library. Remember boys, nonlethal rounds today. Stop 'em in their tracks.
1/4
Iiw: the alternate world where bolas wins the war of the spark
Alright, was hoping for a couple more entries, but I'll go ahead and judge now.
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.
Thrill-kill Chef BR
Creature- Human
Whenever a creature dies, you may pay (B/R). If you do, create a Mystery Meat Pie artifact token with "T,sacrifice Mystery Meat Pie: It deals 1 damage to any target."
Sacrifice 5 Mystery Meat Pies: Gain control of up to two target creatures until end of turn. Untap them. They gain haste. Sacrifice them at the beginning of the next end step.
1/3
Roiling Mantle
I like that this eliminates the biggest disadvantage of manlands with totem armor. The trample anthem is a nice touch as well.
Omnath, Locus of Life
This is really unique and cool, and I like the elemental/ land tribal triggers, but I was reading that last ability and knew there had to be a way to break it. This going infinite with Training Grounds turns all your elementals and all your untapped lands save one into arbitrarily large hasty creatures, and produces infinite mana with any multiple tapping land seems like a combo that's just too easy to assemble for what it does.
Valley of Primordials
I like the anthem effect, but honestly, even if I have 4 of these out, paying 6 mana for a 4/4 for one turn isn't what I want to be doing in pretty much any archetype. Also, it should probably give them a creature type.
Nissa the Awakener
I like the slow building and one-punch damage style. Indestructible, hasty 4/4s on turn 4 are powerful, but not broken, as you are investing 3 mana and a card into it the first time. The ult is a little lackluster for the cost, and counterintuitive in that her static should probably prevent your lands from yarding most of the time.
Burgeoning Energy
Essentially a mana doubler or tripler for animated lands, this is a cool effect, and could definitely slot in the right deck. Plus, candelabra loves it.
Dawn Dryad
While a cool idea, this is somewhat undermined by the fact that lands are colorless by default, and most land animation doesn't give them a color.
4 mana to turn all of your lands into 3/5s or so in the average deck that would play this is pretty impressive, but the way this would probably see play is to animate your opponents lands and then do a one-sided boardwipe. i.e. Anger of the Gods if you have at least 2 colors, or any number of other things. Also, it sounds much more like an enchant than an artifact.
Blighted Moon
Simple, can be brutal with mass land animation like Sylvan Awakening, and good flavor.
Mr. Rithaniel for the simple, solid overall design and the unique build-around-ability in a land tribal/ramp style deck.
HMs to Forestsguy and Stille_Nacht
Next up: Baked goods as artifacts
Just to clarify for this one, any manlands are fair game, with a special consideration to cards with a "land creatures" tribal theme. And it can be a tribal spell or an anthem effect or whatever, it doesn't necessarily have to be a manland itself as long as it is thematically manland tribal support.
Bloodrite Cannibal BR
Creature- Barbarian Wizard
Pay 2 life, sacrifice Bloodrite Cannibal: The next spell you cast this turn has delve and convoke.
Tap 2 untapped creatures you control, exile 2 other cards from your graveyard, pay 2 life: Return Bloodrite Cannibal from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Bloodrite Cannibal gets +2/+2 and has deathtouch and lifelink as long as you own 6 or more creature cards with different names in exile.
2/1
Sorry about late judging, I had a medical procedure and have been very out of it the past few dars. So, without further ado, judging for last challenge:
Knickemaker
I love the idea, but it does seem very very parasitic. There would have to be a very specific limited meta for this to be usable.
Promising Prototype
I like that you don't have to play it only when it's active, and it seems like a nice solid beater. The counter on an artificer seems a bit off, but overall it's unique and strong.
Blastsack Sliver
I read that name very wrong the first time. Other than that, this is a cool tool for slivers that at worst is an expensive bolt, and at best makes you immune to Slivers' worst enemy, boardwipes. Slightly parasitic, but that's not a deal-breaker for slivers. I would feel pretty awful opening this in most limited though.
Ancestor of Virtue
Pay 1 to kill it, pay 2 to make a 2/1 that anthems your tokens. Simple, powerful. I'm not a huge fan of casting a creature just to have it immediately die, I would almost prefer if it had cycling or discarded for an effect, as right now it's pretty much a build-around mechanically, since you need to invest 1 mana, then 2 mana in a fragile, non-recurrable effect.
Barken Hide
I'm conflicted on this card. Essentially, you want to play it in long games where a slow army of tokens can overrun the board, but you don't particularly want to play it against bant, as enchantment removal X-for-1s you if you don't have multiples. So you want to play it in slow games against fast colors ideally, which seems a bit too cute. If it was priced 1 higher and gave +1/+1 instead of +0/+1, maybe limiting it to green creatures or something and making 1/0s, I could see it for the residual value
Master of Flames
This guy has a really cool effect, but on an empty board, he swings for 8, 6 of which is trample, and he passes the bolt test. That seems like a ton of power for 4 mana, especially considering you can lead up to him with cheap things that cost R,1R, or 1RR, he scales a bit too quickly for 4.
Bone Wagon
I love the aristocrats feel,and the continuing power buff with each crewing. Works extremely well with recurring creatures and death triggers, and can save your creatures in the face of removal. I think this probably could've been costed more aggressively if anything.
Ironroot Infantry
I don't know if this particularly counts for the challenge, as it's always at least a 2/1 in play, but it is technically a 2/0 so I won't be too nitpicky. Toughness scaling is a feature that never seems too interesting on its own, as it doesn't do much to influence the board. Maybe if it had some treefolk-like toughness effect once it got up to like 4 or more, that would be flavorful and cool, but as is, it seems a little plane for rare.
Wartide Elemental
Definitely a cool effect, suffers from being a 2/0 on paper but in all actuality it's 2/1 at minimum. However, my main issue with this is the cost-to-effect ratio. This only passes the vanilla test if you have 8 other creatures out, which is a huge investment. Now, it does have vigilance and haste, and malleable P/T is a bonus, so it doesn't quite have to pass vanilla test to be playable, but it's so far off that this would be painful to play most of the time, and I would be disappointed if this was my limited rare.
Sorry, by the time I logged on to judge, the site was down, I'm assuming that was for the transfer. I'm pretty busy right now, but I'll give the winner and next challenge now to keep things moving.
Winner: subject16
Next:Convoke, improvise, or delve
Spellscale PikerUR
Creature- Wizard Soldier
As long as you control a Dragon or Drake, Spellscale Piker gets +2/+1 and has prowess and flying. 1UR, exile an instant or sorcery spell you control: Create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying.
1/1
IiW:creatures/tokens/vehicles with zero toughness and nonzero power
Sundappled Bow 3
Artifact- Equipment
Forge with Nightshade Dagger 2B (You may cast this spell for its forge cost by sacrificing an equipment named Nightshade Dagger. If you do, it enters the battlefield attached to any permanent the sacrificed equipment was attached to.)
If Sundappled Bow's forge cost was paid, it enters the battlefield transformed.
Equipped creature has reach.
Whenever equipped creature blocks, Sundappled Bow deals 1 damage to each of up to 3 targets.
Equip 1W
//
Starlit Shortbow
Artifact- Equipment
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has vigilance, reach and "T: This creature deals 1 damage to each of up to 3 targets."
Whenever a creature an opponent controls is dealt damage, that creature's controller loses 1 life.
Equip 4
Nightshade Dagger 4
Artifact- Equipment
Forge with Sundappled Bow 1W (You may cast this spell for its forge cost by sacrificing an equipment named Sundappled Bow. If you do, it enters the battlefield attached to any permanent the sacrificed equipment was attached to.)
If Nightshade Dagger's forge cost was paid, it enters the battlefield transformed.
Equipped creature has deathtouch.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, put a charge counter on Nightshade Dagger. Then, defending player loses life equal to the number of charge counters on Nightshade Dagger.
Equip 1B
//
Twilit Blade
Artifact- Equipment
Whenever equipped creature attacks, put a charge counter on Twilit Blade.
Equipped creature gets +X/+0 and has deathtouch, where X is the number of charge counters on Twilit Blade.
Whenever equipped creature would deal combat damage to a player, you may instead deal X damage divided as you choose among up to 3 targets, where X is the number of charge counters on Twilit Blade.
Equip: 3
Nevinyrral, the Eternal
This is the most creative use of counters out of any entry in my opinion. My biggest issue is that I can never think of a time that I'd want to cast this, I'd just want to pitch it to yard early on and let it build, and that having multiples in yard breaks the legend flavor.
Wade, Master Craftsman
I like the flavor of crafting weapons out of dragonbone, and it could potentially be powerful, but it seems like the only realistic way to play this is to kill a bunch of your own dragons/drakes as relying on your opponent to run them isn't reliable, and that seems like too many hoops to jump through for essentially the effect of Stoneforge Mystic
Destined to Fade
An interesting variation of suspend, Reserve seems like a solid nonflashy mechanic that lets you spread paying for spells out over multiple turns while also providing resiliency to hand hate. However, it does strike me as being extremely close to suspend for this challenge.
Unfathomable Oobleck
I like this card a lot. It is solid value that builds in the early game, and provides a solid persistent bonus in late game. Love in multiples.
Volpex Elemental
I like this card quite a bit, and I'm sure there's some way to break it, which is always fun. Feels more izzet than mono blue to me, maybe that's just because I play Norin the Wary
Ulamog of the Eternities
This is at floor a 9 mana (generic too, not even colorless) 20/20 trample indestructible. That's miles stronger than anything Tron has ever had to date. Throw in the other abilities and this is just bonkers. Also, not sure why hexproof is even on the card, since it doesn't effect the card in exile and adding 2 lines of text for an ability that will only be relevant by casting a card through an alternate, unrelated method seems confusing and not worth it.
Mentallic Blast
So this is essentially Lightning Bolt, and you pay an extra U to make every card you draw at instant speed while this is on the stack ping for 1. It seems pretty underwhelming, and I think could've been safely 2 damage per card drawn, considering the amount of setup necessary.
Baeyana, Transcendant One
I love any card that comboes with Conjurer's Closet, mainly because most people will say, "wait, no it doesn't", and Baeyana seems like a solid all-rounder. The lack of ability to interact with the counters might be problematic though, as similar effects like Animar can be dealt with via removal, but recasting Baeyana loses no progress, but overall I think it's more balanced than not.
Mergatroid_Jones
HM: Subject16,Sephon19
Next Challenge: Split cards, aftermath, meld , or similar mechanic.
Artifact
Whenever you cast a creature spell with converted mana cost 0, Kobold Totem becomes a 0/1 red Kobold creature until end of turn.
2R: Each creature you control gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is 2 minus its converted mana cost. Activate this ability only if Kobold Totem is a creature. (If X is negative, treat it as 0)
Iiw: low mana permanents that are late game all stars
Creature- Loxodon Soldier {R}
When Riotbreaker Squad enters the battlefield, if it was cast, create 2 tokens that are copies of it.
1W,T: Riotbreaker Squad deals 2 damage to target attacking creature. If that creature would die this turn, instead put it on top of its owner's library.
Remember boys, nonlethal rounds today. Stop 'em in their tracks.
1/4
Iiw: the alternate world where bolas wins the war of the spark
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
Creature- Human
Whenever a creature dies, you may pay (B/R). If you do, create a Mystery Meat Pie artifact token with "T,sacrifice Mystery Meat Pie: It deals 1 damage to any target."
Sacrifice 5 Mystery Meat Pies: Gain control of up to two target creatures until end of turn. Untap them. They gain haste. Sacrifice them at the beginning of the next end step.
1/3
IIW: legendary auras
Roiling Mantle
I like that this eliminates the biggest disadvantage of manlands with totem armor. The trample anthem is a nice touch as well.
Omnath, Locus of Life
This is really unique and cool, and I like the elemental/ land tribal triggers, but I was reading that last ability and knew there had to be a way to break it. This going infinite with Training Grounds turns all your elementals and all your untapped lands save one into arbitrarily large hasty creatures, and produces infinite mana with any multiple tapping land seems like a combo that's just too easy to assemble for what it does.
Valley of Primordials
I like the anthem effect, but honestly, even if I have 4 of these out, paying 6 mana for a 4/4 for one turn isn't what I want to be doing in pretty much any archetype. Also, it should probably give them a creature type.
Nissa the Awakener
I like the slow building and one-punch damage style. Indestructible, hasty 4/4s on turn 4 are powerful, but not broken, as you are investing 3 mana and a card into it the first time. The ult is a little lackluster for the cost, and counterintuitive in that her static should probably prevent your lands from yarding most of the time.
Burgeoning Energy
Essentially a mana doubler or tripler for animated lands, this is a cool effect, and could definitely slot in the right deck. Plus, candelabra loves it.
Dawn Dryad
While a cool idea, this is somewhat undermined by the fact that lands are colorless by default, and most land animation doesn't give them a color.
4 mana to turn all of your lands into 3/5s or so in the average deck that would play this is pretty impressive, but the way this would probably see play is to animate your opponents lands and then do a one-sided boardwipe. i.e. Anger of the Gods if you have at least 2 colors, or any number of other things. Also, it sounds much more like an enchant than an artifact.
Blighted Moon
Simple, can be brutal with mass land animation like Sylvan Awakening, and good flavor.
Mr. Rithaniel for the simple, solid overall design and the unique build-around-ability in a land tribal/ramp style deck.
HMs to Forestsguy and Stille_Nacht
Next up: Baked goods as artifacts
Creature- Barbarian Wizard
Pay 2 life, sacrifice Bloodrite Cannibal: The next spell you cast this turn has delve and convoke.
Tap 2 untapped creatures you control, exile 2 other cards from your graveyard, pay 2 life: Return Bloodrite Cannibal from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
Bloodrite Cannibal gets +2/+2 and has deathtouch and lifelink as long as you own 6 or more creature cards with different names in exile.
2/1
IIW: Manland tribal
Knickemaker
I love the idea, but it does seem very very parasitic. There would have to be a very specific limited meta for this to be usable.
Promising Prototype
I like that you don't have to play it only when it's active, and it seems like a nice solid beater. The counter on an artificer seems a bit off, but overall it's unique and strong.
Blastsack Sliver
I read that name very wrong the first time. Other than that, this is a cool tool for slivers that at worst is an expensive bolt, and at best makes you immune to Slivers' worst enemy, boardwipes. Slightly parasitic, but that's not a deal-breaker for slivers. I would feel pretty awful opening this in most limited though.
Ancestor of Virtue
Pay 1 to kill it, pay 2 to make a 2/1 that anthems your tokens. Simple, powerful. I'm not a huge fan of casting a creature just to have it immediately die, I would almost prefer if it had cycling or discarded for an effect, as right now it's pretty much a build-around mechanically, since you need to invest 1 mana, then 2 mana in a fragile, non-recurrable effect.
Barken Hide
I'm conflicted on this card. Essentially, you want to play it in long games where a slow army of tokens can overrun the board, but you don't particularly want to play it against bant, as enchantment removal X-for-1s you if you don't have multiples. So you want to play it in slow games against fast colors ideally, which seems a bit too cute. If it was priced 1 higher and gave +1/+1 instead of +0/+1, maybe limiting it to green creatures or something and making 1/0s, I could see it for the residual value
Master of Flames
This guy has a really cool effect, but on an empty board, he swings for 8, 6 of which is trample, and he passes the bolt test. That seems like a ton of power for 4 mana, especially considering you can lead up to him with cheap things that cost R,1R, or 1RR, he scales a bit too quickly for 4.
Bone Wagon
I love the aristocrats feel,and the continuing power buff with each crewing. Works extremely well with recurring creatures and death triggers, and can save your creatures in the face of removal. I think this probably could've been costed more aggressively if anything.
Ironroot Infantry
I don't know if this particularly counts for the challenge, as it's always at least a 2/1 in play, but it is technically a 2/0 so I won't be too nitpicky. Toughness scaling is a feature that never seems too interesting on its own, as it doesn't do much to influence the board. Maybe if it had some treefolk-like toughness effect once it got up to like 4 or more, that would be flavorful and cool, but as is, it seems a little plane for rare.
Wartide Elemental
Definitely a cool effect, suffers from being a 2/0 on paper but in all actuality it's 2/1 at minimum. However, my main issue with this is the cost-to-effect ratio. This only passes the vanilla test if you have 8 other creatures out, which is a huge investment. Now, it does have vigilance and haste, and malleable P/T is a bonus, so it doesn't quite have to pass vanilla test to be playable, but it's so far off that this would be painful to play most of the time, and I would be disappointed if this was my limited rare.
And as you all know, the winner was Subject16
Winner: subject16
Next:Convoke, improvise, or delve
Creature- Wizard Soldier
As long as you control a Dragon or Drake, Spellscale Piker gets +2/+1 and has prowess and flying.
1UR, exile an instant or sorcery spell you control: Create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying.
1/1
IiW:creatures/tokens/vehicles with zero toughness and nonzero power
Artifact- Equipment
Forge with Nightshade Dagger 2B (You may cast this spell for its forge cost by sacrificing an equipment named Nightshade Dagger. If you do, it enters the battlefield attached to any permanent the sacrificed equipment was attached to.)
If Sundappled Bow's forge cost was paid, it enters the battlefield transformed.
Equipped creature has reach.
Whenever equipped creature blocks, Sundappled Bow deals 1 damage to each of up to 3 targets.
Equip 1W
//
Starlit Shortbow
Artifact- Equipment
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has vigilance, reach and "T: This creature deals 1 damage to each of up to 3 targets."
Whenever a creature an opponent controls is dealt damage, that creature's controller loses 1 life.
Equip 4
Nightshade Dagger 4
Artifact- Equipment
Forge with Sundappled Bow 1W (You may cast this spell for its forge cost by sacrificing an equipment named Sundappled Bow. If you do, it enters the battlefield attached to any permanent the sacrificed equipment was attached to.)
If Nightshade Dagger's forge cost was paid, it enters the battlefield transformed.
Equipped creature has deathtouch.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, put a charge counter on Nightshade Dagger. Then, defending player loses life equal to the number of charge counters on Nightshade Dagger.
Equip 1B
//
Twilit Blade
Artifact- Equipment
Whenever equipped creature attacks, put a charge counter on Twilit Blade.
Equipped creature gets +X/+0 and has deathtouch, where X is the number of charge counters on Twilit Blade.
Whenever equipped creature would deal combat damage to a player, you may instead deal X damage divided as you choose among up to 3 targets, where X is the number of charge counters on Twilit Blade.
Equip: 3
IIW: Creatures with 0 toughness and nonzero power
Nevinyrral, the Eternal
This is the most creative use of counters out of any entry in my opinion. My biggest issue is that I can never think of a time that I'd want to cast this, I'd just want to pitch it to yard early on and let it build, and that having multiples in yard breaks the legend flavor.
Wade, Master Craftsman
I like the flavor of crafting weapons out of dragonbone, and it could potentially be powerful, but it seems like the only realistic way to play this is to kill a bunch of your own dragons/drakes as relying on your opponent to run them isn't reliable, and that seems like too many hoops to jump through for essentially the effect of Stoneforge Mystic
Destined to Fade
An interesting variation of suspend, Reserve seems like a solid nonflashy mechanic that lets you spread paying for spells out over multiple turns while also providing resiliency to hand hate. However, it does strike me as being extremely close to suspend for this challenge.
Unfathomable Oobleck
I like this card a lot. It is solid value that builds in the early game, and provides a solid persistent bonus in late game. Love in multiples.
I like this card quite a bit, and I'm sure there's some way to break it, which is always fun. Feels more izzet than mono blue to me, maybe that's just because I play Norin the Wary
Ulamog of the Eternities
This is at floor a 9 mana (generic too, not even colorless) 20/20 trample indestructible. That's miles stronger than anything Tron has ever had to date. Throw in the other abilities and this is just bonkers. Also, not sure why hexproof is even on the card, since it doesn't effect the card in exile and adding 2 lines of text for an ability that will only be relevant by casting a card through an alternate, unrelated method seems confusing and not worth it.
So this is essentially Lightning Bolt, and you pay an extra U to make every card you draw at instant speed while this is on the stack ping for 1. It seems pretty underwhelming, and I think could've been safely 2 damage per card drawn, considering the amount of setup necessary.
I love any card that comboes with Conjurer's Closet, mainly because most people will say, "wait, no it doesn't", and Baeyana seems like a solid all-rounder. The lack of ability to interact with the counters might be problematic though, as similar effects like Animar can be dealt with via removal, but recasting Baeyana loses no progress, but overall I think it's more balanced than not.
HM: Subject16,Sephon19
Next Challenge: Split cards, aftermath, meld , or similar mechanic.